Two More Good Years
Two more good years. That’s how many more years real estate mogul Sam Zell believes the commercial real estate market will remain solid before experiencing some weakness. At the New York University 12th Annual REIT Symposium in New York, he was quoted as saying, “If I were a betting man, I would look to the first quarter of 2009 with some degree of skepticism.”
Zell believes that the low U.S. unemployment rate is likely to begin rising in the next few years and that a new presidential administration will also effect the overall economy. He further believes that within the commerical real estate market itself, there are several who have stretched themselves too thin in terms of their financial obligations. As they experience more difficulty in meeting their loan obligations, lenders will begin to respond by raising their standards to then compensate for increased risk.