Every year we have roughly the same cycle in Commercial Real Estate. January starts our very slow. We see some level of activity in February. By March the activity level seems to be picking up and in the middle of April we are full steam ahead. This year appears to be no exception.

Our activity levels have seen a steady rise over the last 6-8 weeks and are higher than the same time last year.

We have seen some prices come down a small amount in some sectors and up a little in others. If the trend continues we (Buddy Sauter and Associates) will have a far better year this year than last.

Raw Land is  the only sector that I see no action in. The developers are still sleeping off their bad hangover from the boom and aren't buying. Land speculators will offer you only pennies on the dollar. I think this area is still great if you are into land speculation.

Industrial and Warehouse properties continue to hold their own maintaining higher prices than they deserve (meaning the rents for these properties will not pay the mortgages) Average prices continue to be north of $70 per SF.

Last week we negotiated a purchase contract for 50,000 SF of industrial warehouse space for a client. We expect to see more of the same in the months ahead.

In preparation for a new listing (link) on 9th Ave I spent time researching Retail Properties this weekend and was surprised to find these are selling a good prices. The expectation is that retail follows the housing market, but we are not yet seeing to many signs of this in Pinellas County (The ratio of Retail to housing is relatively fixed in Pinellas due to restrictive land use laws and lack of available land to build on).

And I continue to hear good news from the Residential Agents in the office. The ones that are remaining all seem to be busy, optimistic, and closing deals. My gut tells me we are at the bottom and have a few years of slow growth ahead of us.