Tuesday, July 07, 2009

U.S. office market continues to spiral down - report


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. office market vacancy rate reached 15.9 percent in the second
quarter, its highest in four years and rent fell by the largest amount in more than seven as demand
from companies and other office renters remained weak, real estate research firm Reis said Inc.
"It's bad," Reis director of research Victor Calanog said. "It's decaying and getting worse. Given the
depth and magnitude of the recession, you can argue that we are facing a storm of epic proportions
and we're only at the beginning.
The weak demand helped push up the average weighted U.S. office vacancy rate 0.70 percentage
points during the quarter and 2.7 percentage points compared with a year ago, according to the
report released on Tuesday.
Asking rent during the quarter fell 1.4 percent to $28.43 per square foot. Factoring in rent-free
months and improvement costs to landlords, effective rent -- the net amount of cash landlords take
in -- fell 2.7 percent in the quarter to $23.42 per square foot.
Source: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/090707/137/batuib.html

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