Taking a bit of a break from the residential real estate world, let’s have a look at the commercial real estate picture. 2005 was good to commercial real estate:
Retailers in the Seattle and Bellevue area gobbled up store space at the fastest pace since the 1990s, responding to a strong regional economy and reports the Puget Sound area didn’t have as much retail space as other areas in the country.
…
Prime storefront space in downtown Seattle and Bellevue is nearly 100 percent occupied, virtually every shopping mall has expanded or is about to, and nearly a dozen suburban and semi-rural towns are building new retail districts as part of mixed-use projects.
The article is light on numbers, so it’s hard to say what kind of change prices saw, but I think it’s safe to say that now that vacancy is near zero, rents will be going up if they aren’t already. Lucky retailers.
(Tom Boyer, Seattle Times, 12.28.2005)