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I read with a great deal of interest “Bright Ideas for Driving Traffic” in the February, 2010 issue of Shopping Centers Today magazine.

The relevance of the piece was the central focus of creating consumer recognition and value…what else is new in the shopping center marketing game?

What captured my attention in the article was the renewed interest in utilizing events and promotions as a traffic magnet for center impressions in the minds of consumers, tenant recognition and of course, foot-traffic.

The perception of value in the minds of consumers goes beyond having access to a quality mix of retailers (my words) to what retail centers do to create value opportunities to consumers in the form of staged events…an old marketing concept now being resurrected.

Job fairs (relevant in these times), car shows, well-staged concerts (blues and jazz) and segmented events stretched over time that target shopper by product interest for moms, dads, singles, teens, seniors and other demographic groups are seeing a resurgence.

Farmers’ markets were the No. 1 event type that consumers both attended in the past and would like to see more of.” – ICSC shopper habit study

In my own marketing, I implemented retail center websites as a cost effective value proposition developers, owners and center marketing managers can use to provide existing tenants with additional exposure and promote retail center leasing opportunities.

By combining online exposure through Center Website/Blogs and annually staged events, centers can realize additional consumer traffic, predisposition, improvements in tenant satisfaction and new interest from new tenant prospects. There are few losers in this formula and such approaches can create the value proposition consumers seek.

At this time, magnetism seems to be the watch-word to traffic, value, revenue and satisfaction

Posted by Donald Teel, Arizona Commercial

As we plunge into 2010, commercial real estate market knowledge and a grasp of trends has become an even more essential component to successful investment. If you are a commercial broker/agent it is a requirement.

Grubb & Ellis has put together a top-notch report that analyzes the commercial markets throughout the United States, region-by-region, major-market-by-major-market and property type by property type.

Not only is the data supporting the analysis accurate and well researched, G&E’s online presentation is perhaps the best I have ever seen and is a definitive tool for assessing the regional and local markets for investors and brokerage firms.

In short, I am using the online tool which features a drag-and-drop approach, allowing the user to select a regional sector, a local market and a specific property type report for immediate download.

For example, here you will see G&E’s 2010 market report for the retail sector in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It’s a concise report that includes simplified graphics, it is easy to read and understand by any investor or broker and it lacks the typical long read format used in most commercial reports.

Another benefit of G&E’s approach is that users can also download the entire report or cherry pick the reports they want by region, state, property type, etc.

This report format model is an excellent approach, allowing those of us in the industry to locate the information we want in a precise and easy to follow manner.

Whether you are an investor or a commercial broker/agent the information has value and accessing it has never been easier. The limitation to the reports is seen in the fact that some markets are not included. However, use of the reports for trend analysis is but one obvious benefit.

Here is the link to the Grubb & Ellis online interactive 2010 report, including the national map of regions, states and major markets included in their coverage.

GO TO THE GRUBB & ELLIS ONLINE 2010 MARKET REPORT

Like many who find themselves connected to the lifeblood of the commercial real estate market, I have been listening, researching and studying the myriad voices and have come to the conclusion that we are entering 2010 in a state of conflict.

Two camps have emerged. The first is what I will refer to as the “Disaster Camp” and the second is the “Recovery Camp.”

The Disaster Camp (DC) is the illusive analysts whose cryptic research clearly indicates we are entering an era of melt-down. The DC guys and gals come at us armed with their complex charts and narratives that prove conclusively that we are headed into doomsday.

The Recovery Camp (RC) is equally persuasive with their slick, bullet-pointed PowerPoint presentations. The RC camp trumpets phrases like “sidelined investor capital waiting to be spent” and “Bond money waiting to pounce on market opportunities.”

After all is said and done, more will have been said than done! I’m conflicted as a result of the plethora of combative voices that leave me feeling as if I have just stepped off a wild roller-coaster and cannot gain my bearings.

As we enter 2010, I’m a lot like many of my clients, nauseated and bewildered and I am vowing here and now to never ride that roller coaster again.

For at least the opening stages of 2010, I am going to go back to trusting the basic fundamentals of investment and my instincts. In the early part of 2010 I’m resolving to delete all of the emails that are in the DC and RC camp. Away with the charts and the PDFs that tell many tales.

Here is what I am going to do in 2010…return to trusting me, myself and I. Oh, I will be forced to gaze at many more PowerPoint prophets and read many more detailed documents designed to either scare me into sleeplessness or fill me with the phony messages of hope beyond reason.

My thought is that 2010 is going to be a year of disaster AND recovery. We will eat at both sides of that aweful table made up of vinegar and sugar. That is why I am going to return to trusting myself and to a healthy avoidance of investment extremism. I’m inviting you to do the same.

If you are a commercial real estate specialist, education is paramount to ongoing success. The best commercial broker/agents I know are those with the CCIM designation. That is why I am pursuing the designation myself. Visit CCIM.com for more information.

It’s not often that you will find me promoting my competitors, much less endorse them as cooperative.

Yet, in this case the endorsement is a necessary and complimentary one that serves the interests of commercial real estate investors in the greater Prescott, Arizona market area.

Although oxymoronic, please meet my “cooperating competitors.”

The Prescott Area Commercial Group (PACG) is a non-profit real estate (is “non-profit real estate” an oxymoron) consortium that promotes investment, training and networking of property information among central and northern Arizona commercial brokers and agents.

The Power of Disciplined Focus

PACG represents a disciplined focus on commercial real estate investment and property performance among perhaps the most experienced and highly trained professionals who know and understand the fundamentals of investing in real estate.

PACG was originally formed as a commercial networking group that met to discuss Prescott, Arizona’s commercial real estate market, properties and opportunities. Now PACG is more than a quiet group meeting over coffee to exchange listing and sales information.

The commercial real estate market demands a disciplined focus in order to stay on top of the rapidly evolving trends.

Risky Business or Cooperative Competitors?

PACG is now the most prominent and perhaps “connected” group of commercial specialists in the northern Arizona real estate market.

Having met with most of the PACG Members and interacted with them, I can state without reservation that they are a qualified and trustworthy group that any owner or tenant can call on for assistance. PACG members know their stuff and they work hard to consistently improve their skills and knowledge in order to meet the needs of each client.

Introducing competitors may be regarded as a bit risky, however, in today’s volatile market I believe having a network of trusted colleagues who can provide a kind of “brain trust” is an asset that can be called upon and tapped into for solutions.

Sounding Rusty and Eroded

At the risk of sounding old or, at least rusty, dated and eroded, I’m going to reach back in time and drag an old principle forward. In decades long gone the industry where I have made my mark and enjoyed my gains (and honestly, some losses too) was one built upon trusted associations where business resulted largely from shared information gained from a trusted network of professionals.

Yes, some of this has been eroded over time, which is why I find my association with PACG PACG members refreshing, non-threatening and beneficial to both me and my clients.

I don’t mind if you meet my trusted competitors.

Owning commercial investment real estate requires a lot of hard work, discipline and knowledge in order to create a successful investment.

Tenants come in two forms, good tenants and not-so-good (okay, go ahead and say it, “bad”) tenants. There seems to be no middle ground.

Tenants are capable of odd if not bizarre behavior and often they succumb to the same economic pressures impacting owners and landlords. Pressure can create abnormal responses in any person but when those pressures find their fundamental genesis in the economy, expect surprising tenant behavior.

Stories I have heard or read about lately make some tenants sound like Freddie Krueger…a bad Nightmare on Elm Street.

How to Handle the Next Nightmare. Whether on Elm Street or a strip mall in Atlanta, if you are a commercial owner, landlord, broker or property manager, you are going to eventually meet Freddie and have a nightmare tenant on your hands.

Dealing with Mr. Krueger begins with tenant screening and qualifying. If there was ever a precept that was violated by many owners during the market run-up from 2000-2006, it was qualifying tenants.

However, even after qualifying tenants economic and other factors can erode the performance of any tenant, creating desperation and a propensity to go sideways.

Owners can reduce but not totally control the “Freddie effect” by bearing down on the up-front analysis of the tenant. Controlling a future nightmare on your street begins with qualifying the tenant but it does not end there…read on.

Continue reading “Freddie’s Back and He’s Your Tenant!”

Posted by Donald Teel, Arizona Commercial.

Jones Lang LaSalle Americas CEO Peter Roberts, CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, discusses the commercial real estate rebound and what investors are doing to prepare for it with FOX Business.

The following video features Harry Dent discussing the current market recovery and warns about the ticking time bomb…aka, loan defaults, foreclosures and unemployment and their relationship.

Dent predicts that we will see a foreclosure impact in the first quarter of 2011, 48% will have negative equity positions (mortgage principal higher than the market value) and 50% of those will be “severely” over-levereraged. We have $17 trillion in financial sector debt…all of it based upon leveraged borrowing.

Dent predicts unemployment, mortgage defaults and the worst of the crisis will be early to mid 2011.

According to Dent, “We are going to see the economy worsen again…we are seeing a recovery but it is not sustainable…next year is not going to be the year of recovery that most economists are promising.”

WATCH THIS and post a comment.

This is a vicious market for lessees. Owners are increasingly finding their spaces going dark as the market takes a toll on Tenants and the economic performance of their businesses.

Many businesses predicate and sustain their business model on the economic relationship they have with their lease. When the line of profitability intersects the economic demands of the lease, business owners are faced with tough decisions…so, too are Owners.

Truly, a lease is a function of sound business planning and, in these days, may prove pivotal with respect to sustaining profitability. Revenue for some businesses has decline by almost 30 percent, a huge and life-threatening decline for just about any endeavor.

My Property Performance Analysis (PPA) was orignally designed to assist owners with assessing their property performance and financing options in this “vicious market” but I am extending it to a new approach that assists tenants with evaluating their lease, lease options and streamlining their lease.

The Tenant PPA looks at a number of factors from the Tenant’s side of the relationship, then seeks to formulate a strategy of lease modification that will prove accepatable to the Lessee and Lessor. Some of the components of the Tenant PPA are:

1. Financial review of business performance
2. Creation of ecomomic model for lease performance
3. Streamlining the lease to cycle through the downturn

Bottom Line. As a result of the Tenant PPA, rental rate modification may result if supported by the financial analysis. The Owner maintains leased space with creative offsets to the streamlined lease that serve as incentives against a space “going dark.” These incentives may include early renewals, extensions and rent adjustments associated with positive market and business performance improvements.

The Cost of Going Dark. Going dark is expensive. Re-letting space in a highly competitive market is costly, time consuming and almost always results in revenue decline when measured against a well drafted lease modification.

When an Owner/Tenant relationship is economically strained beyond the breaking point, our position at Arizona Commercial is a simple one, keep the lights on! In a rapidly appreciating market with vacancies below seven percent, this would not be the normal case. However, these are not normal economic times and the decision to execute a Tenant PPA may be in the best interest of the Parties.

Posted by Donald Teel – Arizona Commercial

Everyone, everywhere, is talking about the real estate market. Even people who do not know anything about the real estate market are talking about the real estate market.

Understandably, much of the discussion remains negative. After all, some estimates tells us that the net value of all commercial real estate in the United States has plummeted by as much as 30% since 2006. I would like to address the shiny side of this very ugly coin.

As we come to the end of 2009, how can we successfully invest in commercial real estate?

Many small to intermediate investors have been discovering that buying was the easy side of commercial real estate investment coin…the shiny side! Managing and turning properties in the volatile environment of 2009 has proved to be the tarnished side of our coin.

With respect to the fundamentals of investment, nothing has really changed. Yet, we all know much has changed and continues to change, especially with respect to the acquisition and cost of capital and sustained values. For the purpose of this article, I would like to place a market spin on what I think are the 10 most important principles for small commercial real estate investors to follow in 2010 and beyond.

Property Type. Who could have predicted that the multi-family sector would be where it is today based upon our assumptions ten years ago. We must remind ourselves that our assumptions are merely momentary conclusion based upon ever-evolving data and that the moving data is almost always something over which we have most likely, no control.

Type-casting isn’t just a Hollywood phenomenon, it’s imperative with every real estate transaction these days and in the case of multiple tenant revenues each lease will need to be sifted and ground down in order to determine its viability and value going forward. There are “leases” and there are “Leases” and there are “LEASES.” Nothing works well if the tenants don’t!

Inventory, absorption rates and occupancy rates and CAP rates are imperative to the investment equation. There is no negotiating these issues and they are deal breakers.

Still, it’s Location. It appears that the newest and perhaps safest strategy for small to medium investors is to get big by investing small all over. Just as mix of property types is essential to a sound investment strategy, so also is the principle of multiple locations based upon regional economic dissimilarities. Atlanta’s medical office values and projected demands will be different than those of Seattle and it would be ridiculous to compare Phoenix multi-family to say Manhattan multi-family.
Continue reading “How 2s for Investment Today”