Real Estate Blog

Werre still firmly in the season when folks are making forecasts for the coming year. Monday, Grubb & Ellis Co. released their "2011 Real Estate Forecast" and placed Austin as the 10th strongest real estate market in the nation -- for the next four years. That's 2014 if any of you are counting on your fingers.

Now, personally, I think we're going to move steadily up that ladder, but there are worse places to start than the top ten. Basically these analysts are saying we'll begin at a slow pace, but the recovery will be steady in the leasing market. That is excellent, excellent news considering all the other economic factors we've discussed over the past few weeks. (Just think how much potential there is for commercial lease space around the new F1 track!)

The Austin Business Journal story on the report included a quote from Robert Bach, the senior vice president and chief economist at Grubbs & Ellis:

"All things being considered, 2010 was actually better than most anticipated it would be - we saw positive net absorption and an uptick in investment sales during the second half of the year, positioning us for a continued recovery in 2011. We have challenges to overcome, and we don't expect fundamentals to return to their pre-recessionary peaks for several more years, but we're slowly and cautiously building the foundation necessary to do just that."

Okay, anybody here who doesn"t think a solid foundation is a good idea? That's what caused the real estate market to bottom out in the first place -- no underlying strength. If we're coming back -- and we are -- we want to come back having learned a lot from the experience of what amounted to an implosion.

We're seeing a renewed level of demand in our local market on pretty much all levels that speaks not just to a rebound, but to a healthy rebound. We want long-term, solid investment prospects and on that front things don't just don't just look good. In my opinion they look really good. (The report called them "extremely encouraging.")

There's actually an analysis for the entire Central Texas region linked to the article (scroll down toward the bottom), so if you want to read it and dig a little deeper, click here to read the original article.

Every time we talk about one of these forecasts, I think we're seeing a layer of pessimism peeled away. And really, there's never been that much reason to be down about the "downturn" in Austin. We weathered the storm far better than most, which means we're coming out of the gate ahead of the pack in these opening days of what most people are now willing to call a recovery.