Real Estate Industry News
Commercial real estate activity picking up
Saturday, 22, May 2010
Lavista Associates recently sold 11 office buildings in 40 days.Ackerman & Co. has seen its transaction volume almost double.And Carter announced Thursday that a New York equity firm paid $11.3 million for a renovated 216,000-plus square foot shopping center in Augusta. Atlanta-based Carter said the deal drew interest from the investor market nationwide.Heavily discounted prices and more available financing have created a flurry of activity for metro Atlanta commercial real estate brokers.
Industry experts said they expect gradual improvement to continue this year because sellers are becoming more reasonable about prices and lenders are back in the market.Still, commercial property sales in metro Atlanta fell 66 percent in the 12 months ended March 31 vs. the same period a year earlier, according to LoopNet, an online commercial real estate listing service. Sales totaled $1.9 billion, compared with $5.5 billion for the same period in 2009.