Upbeat Commercial Real Estate Outlook

Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA vice president of research at Cushman & Wakefield says, while he is "very optimistic" about the state of commercial real estate in 2016, he is expecting that demand will be "not quite as strong" as it was last year. Jason Tolliver says 2015 was one of the top five years on record for leasing demand throughout the state, thanks in part to increasing wages and decreasing oil prices. He says headwinds including a stronger dollar and a slowdown in China are creating market uncertainty. Tolliver was among more than 1,500 industry executives at Thursday’s State of Real Estate event in Indianapolis.
In addition to wages and oil prices, Tolliver says "structural" factors also boosted markets in 2015. He says the evolution of supply chains and the emergence of e-commerce drove a lot of leasing demand, particularly in the industrial market. The firm says many smaller communities in Indiana reported their largest year-over-year gains on record in 2015, with larger cities like Indianapolis and Fort Wayne also remaining solid growth drivers.
The State of Real Estate has become one of the industry’s largest yearly events. Inside INdiana Business Television Host Gerry Dick hosted this year’s edition, which featured an interview with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett. Other speakers included Cushman & Wakefield Principal Economist Ken McCarthy, Senior Managing Director Jeff Castell and Market Leader Chris Yeakey.
In September, Cushman & Wakefield completed its $2 billion merger with Chicago-based DTZ. The combined operation has more than $5 billion in revenue and 43,000 employees.
Tolliver says communities of all sizes are seeing growth.