Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal — Brokerage Directory — July 27 - August 16, 2012 — B
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By Bill Gladstone, Bill Gladstone Group of NAI CIR Remain optimistic: Bright Spots on the horizon
Y
ou’re kidding: The second quarter fell short? Yes it did. It
for Spain requires a pledge of $24 million Euros, and when a race for the Presidency in the United States is as close as it is, how can you predict what is going to happen? The best you can do is hedge your bet and proceed forward. People have tried that - some have done better than others. In today’s environ- ment sometimes I meet not only with my client, but with their banker. It is not the banker for the commercial loan department but the per- son with the workout or REO department. And it is not as
though I have never spoken to my client’s attorneys before, but now there seems to be an increase in conversations with their bankruptcy attor- ney. Are there conversations in which price and terms are negotiated? Yes - and prob- ably always will be. However, right now the negotiations are much more intense as people are very motivated (forced) to sell or lease their buildings at or below market pricing. Should we remain optimistic or is this refection on the sec- ond quarter a time for pessi- mism? I do not think we have
a choice. We have to remain optimistic and be encouraged that there are bright spots on the horizon. Although those spots are not as vibrant or as numerous as the frst quarter, the light at the end of the tun- nel is still there. Maybe that light is just a little hazier, but it is still obtainable. For example, offce leasing, indus- trial leasing (500,000+ square feet) and land development sales are extremely slow. Triple Net investment sales, medical offce purchases, and commercial development of corner lots are still riding the
crest of the wave. Although the third quarter has not yet revealed itself in terms of market expectations one way or the other, we can only hope it will rise and perform as happened in January and February. This is the time when you call on your perse- verance, your creativity, and your ability to understand the events of the world and create your own reality. There is no other good choice. Bill Gladstone is the prin- cipal of the Bill Gladstone Group of NAI CIR based in Harrisburg, PA. n
certainly did not meet the expectations t ha t we r e set by the frst quarter of 2012. At best the sec- ond quarter stayed flat,
Bill Gladstone
maybe retreated a little, which made it much different than the frst quarter of this year where there was noticeable improvement from January until at least the beginning of March. So what happened? Things occurred that were somewhat unanticipated and very much out of our control. The economy remains slug- gish whether due to President Obama’s spending plans, elec- tion year politics, or the Euro Zone banking crisis. If you did not realize how tightly our economies are tied to- gether globally, you should now. What happens in Greece and Spain certainly has a way of trickling down to the United States of America and affect- ing our economy here in the Western Hemisphere. Views established by theWorld Bank and the EMF now more than ever affect what is happen- ing in this country. As we perform our daily jobs and follow our career paths, how do we watch for example, the unemployment rate rising one-tenth from 6.8% to 6.9%, with an overall lower increase in non-farm jobs of 322,900 in our MJA, a loss of 1,400 jobs for the same time last year? Or how do we know that the consumer confdence index fell from 71.6 in February to 62 in June as a jittery stock market, lower home values, and wors- ening European economies overshadowed energy savings at the pump. That is a very good ques- tion, and there is not a very good answer. You can read as much as you would like, you can discuss with others, you can get closer to understand- ing the source of the informa- tion, but all you will do in the end is predict what may or may not happen. There is no absolute, there is no fnite, it all depends on the day-to-day activities of the international scene. When there is one Arab uprising after another, when the banking bailouts
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