In terms of the real estate sector, instability and growth are the constant scenarios. However, for New York and other regions, it boasts of strong commercial real estate transactions that have boosted the region's real estate market.
For instance, one of the recent commercial real estate transactions that was highlighted in 2015 involved a 1930 four-story industrial building in NYC, which has been vacant since 2012. The 55,000-square-foot building has 12-foot-high ceilings and a full basement, and was originally listed for $5 million in April 2014, as reported by The New York Times.
The report further indicated that Div Hdv Brooklyn, L.L.C., a subsidiary of Highland Development Ventures, bought the property. Its brokers were Chris Halliburton and Brandon Himmel of Halstead Property, and Neil Dolgin of Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates.
Another commercial property was owned by a company that makes yogurt using locally sourced milk, probiotic cultures and sea salt. The transaction led to a signing of a 10-year lease for the entire 5,000-square-foot single-story warehouse, due to its new production and distribution facility.
However, despite the strong sales of the region, of the five years that has passed, the record growth revealed signs of stress that are emerging in New York City's real estate market. Moreover, for the past three months, even the new office leasings gained 28.2 million square feet as of last year, the third-highest Manhattan total in a decade, as mentioned in a separate post by Crains New York.
The figure is 14 percent below 2014 levels, and the drop came with the steep rise in retail rents and the booming property sales, from residential towers to development sites, having lost steam, as further reported by Crains NY.
Meanwhile, Joanne Podell, Cushman's head of retail leasing said, "We do see a slowdown in rents and more vacancies, and on the gilded strip of Fifth Avenue, the city's priciest in terms of leasing cost per square foot, rents ebbed 8.5 percent last year."
Podell further added, "[In] the trendy meatpacking district, the amount of retail space available to rent jumped nearly 20 percent last year, and farther south, in SoHo, so many spaces are available that much of the talk is about how difficult the market is."
