* onday, April 5, 2010 ET
Vornado, Boston Hold Up Despite Sky-High Office Vacancies
By Tiernan Ray
The highest vacancy rate in U.S. office space in 17 years hasn’t crimped the style of Vornado Realty Trust (VNO), a REIT holding primarily urban office space. Its stock is up 80 cents, or 1%, at $76.62, despite Reuters’s Ilaina Jonas this morning reporting that U.S. vacancies in the first quarter were at their highest level since 1994, at 17.2%.
There are signs of a turnaround, however, with office rents falling just 0.8%, on average, in Q1, below the average decline last year, Jonas reports. However, factoring in free rents thrown in, the year-over-year effective decline in rents was still high, at 7.4%.
Among other office REITs, Boston Properties (BXP) is up 52 cents, or 0.7%, at $75.99, and SL Green (SLG) is up 99 cents, or 1.7%, at $58.79. |
