Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services recently sent a bit of good news for retail landlords, at least those in the Columbus, Ohio, region.
According to Marcus & Millichap, the retail vacancy rate in this Ohio city should fall to a five-year low in 2012.
Of course, the news wasn’t all great. While retail landlords can expect to receive higher rents in 2012, the increase will be minimal when compared to last year.
Here are the important numbers: Vacancy in the Columbus retail sector is expected to drop 40 basis points this year to 10.2 percent, the lowest this number has been since 2007. The reasons are the common ones: There has been a limited supply of new retail and a rise in leasing activity.
Asking rents are expected to jump 0.8 percent this year to $12.22 a square foot, while effective rents should rise 1 percent to $10.31 a square foot.
Again, those rent increases aren’t big ones. But they do represent, at the very least, a positive trend.
In fact, I’m enjoying this latest round of commercial real estate reports from Marcus & Millichap. Most of them today bring evidence that the commercial real estate market across the Midwest is in recovery mode. This recovery isn’t happening fast enough for most of us, but it is happening, nonetheless.
