03Aug
Here’s something that isn’t really much of a surprise. Our office market is hurting. Badly. Between the two cities it looks like Fort Worth has about 7.5% vacancy rate overall. Dallas, on the other hand, has about a 25% vacancy rate. Not a great indicator for such a large city.
Luckily, Fort Worth has been propped up for years by a growing oil and natural gas industry. The Star-Telegram article notes that a contraction in the energy industry has severely crippled office occupation in downtown Fort Worth recently. These vacancies flow outward throughout the rest of the market, and rent rates are heading further south.
Interestingly, the article mentions that Chesapeake was able to move employees from the parking garage office (across from The Tower and the Telegram) and into the CHK regional HQ building. This was accomplished because Pier 1 was willing to give up some space they had been leasing back. Kind of makes you wonder if Pier 1 isn’t continuing to contract as well?
29Jul
I got a comment on my looming foreclosures post from Christopher at ForeclosureListings.com. He took exception to my saying that only bankruptcy attorney’s are making money on these foreclosures. In the article I was focusing on larger commercial properties, but Christopher does make a good point about others profiting.
Quite a few people can and do make decent amounts of money of foreclosures. Many real estate agents turn to banks for work when their business begins to head south. Investors are doing very well by picking up properties at relatively low prices. The problem here is that you need to be very liquid in the current lending environment. There is no doubt though that foreclosure investments now will pay off very well if interest rates begin to rise. I also note that in some cases a property in foreclosure around Fort Worth may even have enough royalty income to justify the investment.
So thanks to Christopher for mentioning that. The Foreclosure Listings site looks like a fairly good resource I may have to check out.
28Jul
Museum Place is getting a new-old tenant. Domain XCIV, (I guess you could call them an upscale home furnishing store?). They are opening up on Thursday, and will be hosting a happy hour Friday evening.
I don’t know if you need an invite to attend the happy hour, I would probably just call. I think I might have to miss out Friday Night though.
28Jul
I wondered about that big ugly billboard hiding a good portion of the new Museum Place Flat Iron building. But Kevin wrote about it, and now I understand that the problems lie with the neighboring property owner.
I have to say that I was both amused and impressed to see it being put to relatively good use by a tenat. Legacy Texas Bank has done a fairly good job at utlizing an otherwise tremendous eyesore in the area. The billboard has a vivid and appealing design with a nice red arrow that almost says, “We’re right down here”. The whole thing really kind of reminds me of a Web 2.0 presence… in 3D. In the future I think someone else could feasibly continue to put some real creativity into this billboard. Would probably be better if it came down though.
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