FALLS CHURCH, Va., March 13, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CORFAC International 2013 President Bill Hawkins announced the results of CORFAC's Investor Sentiment Survey that was conducted in late February and sent to more than 100 CORFAC members who are Certified Commercial Investment Members (CCIMs) and others that specialize in investment sales in dozens of U.S. markets and Canadian Provinces.
Most of the commercial investment sales specialists said that they represent private investors over institutional clients more often – approximately 75%-to-25% of the time, yet even that was offset by several survey respondents reporting that they represent private investors 90%-to-100% of the time. Conversely, other CORFAC members say that institutional investors account for 70% or more of their clientele.
SURVEY RESULTS
The majority felt that their markets were "strong" on investment sales activity (55%), while 18% thought it was "good," 18% thought it was 'moderate' and 9% thought investment sales activity was weak in their markets.
Despite the threat from last year's fiscal cliff financial fiasco, 46% said that their clients would go ahead and try to sell commercial property this year – even with increased capital gains taxes in 2013.
The majority thought that the current market favors sellers (70%) over buyers (20%) but several answered "it depends" and with qualifying comments – among them:
- "Core properties favor sellers and value-add/REO properties favor buyers."
- "There is a limited supply of buildings listed 'For Sale' in our market right now but I wouldn't necessarily say that it favors sellers. Of the buildings that are listed 'For Sale,' a majority of them are either overpriced or functionally obsolete (or both). Buyer demand is strong so when a quality building comes onto the market at a fair price, it should trade fairly quickly. However, a 'fair' price is still 20%+ below the highs from 2007."
Not surprisingly, multifamily ran away with the favored investment product type (36%) yet industrial properties also ranked highly (27%) and was followed by office (15%), owner-occupied (8%), retail – especially single tenant, national quick-service restaurants (8%) and net leased investment properties were favored by 5% of survey respondents.
In terms of a forecast for the balance of 2013, 60% of CORFAC's survey participants predicted that prices would increase, 40% said they would remain flat and none thought that prices would decline during the year.
"The fact that most of the survey participants think that the market favors sellers, and further, that prices will likely rise this year, it means that their clients have an underlying confidence in the economy and the real estate fundamentals are in pretty good shape in the majority of markets covered by CORFAC's investment sales specialists," said Hawkins.
Corporate Facility Advisors (CORFAC) has 86 affiliated offices worldwide. For more information on the CORFAC network, contact 703.532.6160 or visit http://www.corfac.com/">www.corfac.com.
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