As we prepared to close out 2020, I’m sure many of you reading this thought to yourselves, “Thank goodness, let’s get 2020 over with and move on!” I can’t say that I blame you. It’s understandable that everyone has a different perspective. People have been impacted differently, and perhaps still have feelings of unease surrounding the pandemic, the economy and most importantly family and loved ones.
So many terms are used for this new wave of technology that we're on the precipice of...we have Fintech, Proptech, Insurtech, Wealthtech, Regrech, Legaltech, Femtech, Foodtech and the list goes on.
As we fall into a new month and COVID numbers continue to be on the rise in NH yet again, surprising amounts of leases were signed last month. Perhaps people are trying to get back to a sense of normalcy in the office, and perhaps people are down - or up - sizing their offices based on their needs. Whatever it might be, 39 lease transactions in a single month is something that hasn't been reported since February 2019.
The industrial market is kind of in a strange place right now. It is faring better than the majority of the commercial real estate sectors, which is certinaly a positive. It seems that perhaps the sudden increase in the amount of e-commerce and online ordering has helped the industrial sector find its footing again.
July showed some promising numbers when we took a look at our monthly report!
The number of lease transactions are (WAY) up from last month. On top of lease transactions being up, we also saw that leases were being signed at 107% of the asking lease rate which is good news for landlords!
There's little doubt that small businesses have been some of the hardest hit through this COVID-19 pandemic. We might not know what it is going to look like, but there IS a "normal" in the future. Many businesses are barely staying afloat, forget thriving, but there are some things businesses can do now to try and be ahead of the curve.
One of the sectors of commercial real estate that seems to be surviving through this pandemic is the industrial sector, despite having to shut down for a period of time.
In June we saw:
• higher list-to-close ratios for sales AND leases
As I began to draft this article, I had to stop and pause for a moment to reflect on how drastically altered the commercial real estate landscape finds itself due to the implications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not surprisingly retailers are a litttttle leery signing new leases in the midst of a pandemic. Even with businesses beginning to open up across the country in May and June, there are still too many unknowns out there.
Among those questions are:
Could this be the jab to the throat brick-and-mortar retail was trying to avoid? Back in February forecasts were predicting that U.S. retail would see moderate growth somewhere around 2.8% in 2020. This was PC (pre-COVID), of course. Now, the newest available data is showing that U.S. retail sales will most likely decline 10.5% this year, and those getting hit the hardest will be brick-and-mortar retail stores.
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