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Retail real estate is changing…slowly, yes, but perhaps finally and forever!

In the retail world of Commercial Real Estate, what was big and fat is now being honed down in size, shape, color and message.

For most of my career retail centers, gerenally speaking, all looked the same. All shopping malls have been essentially the same and all open air centers were all the same. Town centers…same! Strip centers…yep, same! With few exceptions, there existed little or differentiation in the marketing or the appeal. With the exception of Outlets and higher end centers, retail has been essentiall the same, tame and lame story.

Design is free when you get to scale. The riskiest thing you can do now is be safe…safe is risky. — Seth Godin

One of the most important ingredients in retail today is the ability of a location to “stand out” as a unique place that delivers a constant stream of products that are remarkable and irresistible to “unique” people and groups. Emphasis on “REMARKABLE” and emphasis on “UNIQUE.”

Listen to Seth Godin from TED on the topic of standing out.

There is a lot to be said for quality. There is a lot to be gained by a commitment to quality property management.

In the world where being grunge is often applauded and rewarded, I remain convinced that being tacky is a cultural statement about one’s point of reference.

Is it just me or have you also noticed some of the creeping influences of grunge within the world of CRE?

Of late, I’m becoming more acutely aware of the relationship between cracked stucco, peeling paint, potholed parking lots, leaking roofs and the level of an owner’s commitment to creating and maintain property value through capital improvements and dedication to property management.

I See Ugly Properties

My recent observations of properties in the metro Phoenix, Arizona commercial real estate market have led me to the conclusion that something grungy is happening. Once pristine properties are now left to the elements. The same grunge is becoming more and more apparent in the Prescott, Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona commercial real estate markets.

There appears to be a deliberate draw-down on capital commitments and property management. It’s obvious, it’s annoying and it most certainly can impact a commercial property’s actual and perceived value. Capital is tight and owners are hesitant to spend.
Continue reading “The Nasty World of CRE Grunge”

CenterPointe Medical Plaza in Prescott, Arizona is a new build-to-suit medical office complex with customized Suites ranging in size from ±2,000 to more than ±9,000 square feet.

The growing demand for health care is a reflection of the demographic factors resulting from the regional growth of Central and Northern Arizona in the last 25 years.

The CenterPointe Medical Plaza is ideally situated in the heart of the medical community in Prescott, Arizona.

CenterPointe is adjacent to the Tri City Surgery Center and in proximity to Ponderosa Pediatrics, Desert Hand Therapy and just minutes from Yavapai Regional Medical Center and Bradshaw Mountain Laboratory, the area’s premiere testing center.

The Plaza offers three complete build-to-suite medical suites, each customizable within the pre-planned development. From ±2,000 s.f. to ±9.000 s.f. Additionally, each suite has a private entrance, private offices and dedicated Physician and staff parking.

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Download the brochure for this property.

See the Location on a Map.

Contact Bebe Wright, CPM, CCIM at (928) 710-1783 or by email.

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Donald Teel is a Senior Associate and Principal with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial real estate brokerage and property management firm, headquartered in Prescott, Arizona. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

As the new school year begins for 2011, here are a few new commercial real estate rules to help guide you through the year. Let’s call this lesson, “Commercial Real Estate 101.”

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Donald Teel is a Senior Associate and Principal with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial real estate brokerage and property management firm, headquartered in Prescott, Arizona. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

The commercial real estate industry has been traveling a windy, dusty road since 2007.

There has been a lot of talk about pent-up demand, cash on the side lines and investors in the wings. So far we have not seen the long awaited collision of reduced prices and pent-up demand.

We travel down the road, wearied and parched, as months go by without our seeing a passing vehicle.

Small and intermediate investors, those most strapped for cash reserves, are running low on fuel waiting for the collision of buying power with what they fear is their last price adjustment they dare make before the notes are called and new refinancing is required. The NOI isn’t there, neither are the tenants or the buyers.

The good news is that we are seeing the dust of approaching vehicles just over the hill. There is the noise of oncoming traffic.

Those of us in the Northern Arizona commercial market are seeing a measurable increase in traffic. We are seeing more tenants, slight increases in rental rates and in general more activity on the retail and industrial fronts.

Although we are not yet ready to pop the corks on the Champaign bottles, we are least sipping some cheap wine in anticipation that perhaps 2011 will bring the collision between lower rates and pent up demand.

Barring any overreaching government intervention and further reluctance of lenders, I am now finally ready to at least acknowledge the prohibited collision is predictably logical.

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Donald Teel is a Senior Associate and Principal with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial real estate brokerage and property management firm, headquartered in Prescott, Arizona. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

Here’s a photo blog for your thoughts. What impact, if any, will the future changes in lending have on CRE investors and property values? How much control do lenders have on market outcomes?

Note: This post was originally written by Donald Teel for residential Broker-Owners. It is syndicated from REALonomics because of its relevance to commercial brokerages and investors. “REALonomics” is a registered trademark ® of The Teel Group, Inc.

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The real estate industry is not too unlike an organization living in a state of collective schizophrenia. Figuratively speaking, we are hearing voices that are not real.

Our hallucinations are mostly self-induced; the voices we hear are actually our own mumblings and business babblings disguised as forces we do not control.

I’m now convinced the real estate industry is delusional but not in the classic clinical sense of schizophrenia. Rather, we are deluded by the notion that what we are experiencing is beyond our control.

Since we don’t have an alternative point of reference for our dilapidated and dysfunctional (not to mention unprofitable) business models, we willingly succumb to the voices that keep telling us all will be well and in time the market will return to normalcy (whatever that is).

We have come to actually believe there is a quick cure for our collective malady. We have long ago stopped taking the medications of self-reliance that can eliminate the voices and have instead turned to a political pill that only fuels the illness and delays the inevitable.

The Great Delusional Grip

Franchisors continue to pimp and prescribe, increasing their delusional grip on Broker-Owners, convincing them, mistakenly, that their brands are necessary as a market value proposition and to their survival.

To control the delusions and squelch the voices we pretend our economic survival can be optimized by merely changing the colors of the pills we ingest. We hallucinate about technology solutions that magically produce profitability through Internet lead generation. The voices continue.
Continue reading “RE’s Schizophrenic Desperation”

The CRE market is anything but “normal” in the traditional sense. Lenders are more demanding than ever and there is less capital on the table than in recent memory.

CAP rate pricing strategies are increasingly difficult to pencil-out these days. After we doing the math we are often left shaking our heads. Owners are facing note calls and having some sleepless nights wondering how to score lending. Lenders are insecure and uncertain about what the Feds might do next.

Welcome to “ABNORMAL” where normalcy, whatever it is or was, exists no more. Welcome to normal defined by abnormality. Our CRE world is fast becoming a frenzied marathon that owners discover takes them nowhere, slowly. Yikes!

Enter Legislative Reform and No Risk Lending

President Barack Obama has signed into law a 2,300 page legislative act known as the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” (HR 4173).

Download the Davis Polk Summary of HR4173

Although the bloated document’s proponents claim the new law will right the financial wrongs that created the current abnormal state of affairs in lending, others think it may create more uncertainty in the lending market.

Proponents of the legislation claim it will reduce systematic risk in lending and thus protect the banks and the lenders.
Continue reading “CRE’s Coming Orwellian Abnormality”

All of us have exchanged documents. Back and forth they go…tracking…red-lining…renaming…phoning the other party for clarification and, in the end, many times, we simply end up saddling ourselves with another job managing multiple versions of an original document.

Off-and-on for the past couple of years I have been experimenting with how I might use Google Docs in commercial real estate. I have collaborated with Brokers and clients on performance spreadsheets, operating budgets and even listing agreements via the document sharing and editing features of Google Docs.

The Upside. The upside of Google Docs is that I can truly control my documents…a true plus to any CRE Broker!

Another great positive feature is that I can literally control who sees my document by giving them web access.
Continue reading “Using Google Docs in the CRE World”

When Donald Trump wrote “The Art of the Deal” he became an industry authority figure for knowing or, at least claiming to know, how to make deals…deals that work.

Has anything changed since Trump wrote his 1988 best seller? Yes, a lot has changed. The fundamentals of deal making have not changed and perhaps they never will.

Making deals is one thing…now, however, the renewed skill that is most in demand is how to shape the deals we are making.

Due to today’s unique economic times, I’m discovering there is a big difference between securing signatures and shaping a deal for long term performance.

In fact, shaping the deal may be the requisite skill now in most demand because there are fewer deals to be done and the deals that are getting done require more perseverance and targeted thinking.

Negotiating Breakfast with My Daughter

Almost every day, we are all negotiating something. I did it this morning with my 9-year-old daughter. We negotiated about her breakfast. She wanted chocolate donuts, not one, but two! Once we formulated the premise for the sign-off, i.e., what each side had to have, we then had the core of the deal.

My position was clear. “You cannot have donuts for breakfast.” Her position was, “Donuts is the only way to make this deal work.”
Continue reading “The Art of “Shaping the Deal” – Kid Style”