6C — December 7 - 20, 2012 — Pennsylvania — Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal
www.marejournal.com
C ENTRAL PA
By Russell J. Bardolf, Jr., CCIM, SIOR, ROCK Commercial Real Estate Beware of False Reports on the Economic Climate
I
heard or read two things that gave me some level of comfort that it will be over….perhaps.
bull and bear markets, but because his ability to track certain indicators and patterns
in long-term cycles between the last fast growing period and the next long-term growth trend.
and economy emerge from the doldrums”. Bob referred to this 16 year cycle as generational. Apparently, we aren’t learning the right lessons about how we spend, save, and extend our credit. I see patterns to our business that mimics this graph. We experienced a series of short cycles for a couple of years, but since late 2011, we had a steady period of in- creased brokerage activity. At this point, we will hit our 2012 goals and are optimistic about 2013. Wells Fargo bank publishes periodic market reports, includ- ing a quarterly construction survey. The survey received responses from 253 construc- tion related companies, located in 47 states, and having annual sales of more than a million dollars (in fact 37% has sales over $25,000,000). The results were: more thought activity was better than a year ago, over 76% thought materials and equipment costs were somewhat or much higher, over 60% thought the downturn would be over in more than a year, 23% thought it could be 12 months, 37% planned to hire a few workers in the next six months, non-residential construction rose 11.7% over the estimate a year ago, and non-residential construction accounts for more than 88% in the industry. Is it over? Not yet, but things are surely better. Is it a good time to buy and sell real es- tate? Absolutely. Interest rates are low and probably will not change much in 2013. Prices have stabilized. In some cases demand is stronger than sup- ply. Capital gains tax is still favorable. We work with moti- vated buyers and sellers every day. To paraphrase Bob Dickey, “a smart investor will buy when the market is going up, not when it hits its peak.” Russell J. Bardolf, Jr., CCIM, SIOR, director of sales, started with ROCK Commercial Real Estate in 2002. Russell specializes in office and investment real estate sales. He has over 30 years experience working in several positions in the real estate and the devel- opment industry. Prior to ROCK, he worked as a vice president administrative services for Drovers and Mechanics Bank along with various positions at Shipley Energy Company. ■
s it over? Isn’t that a popular question? Is the economic
climate ready to change for the better? Are we out of the woods and our trou- bles ending? Are we going to see some consistency? Is it over?
Is it over? Not yet, but things are surely better. Is it a good time to buy and sell real estate? Absolutely. Interest rates are low and probably will not change much in 2013. Prices have stabilized. In some cases demand is stronger than supply. Capital gains tax is still favorable. We work with motivated buyers and sellers every day.
Russell J. Bardolf, Jr.
Scott Sides, RBC Wealth Management, invited me to hear Bob Dickey, from the RBC PortfolioAdvisory Group, speak. Bob was interesting, not only because he’s been very accurate in his forecasting of
make sense to me, a non-econo- mist, and his graphs chart the history of economic events in understandable ways. The graph that really struck me used the S&P500LargeCap Index and showed how it moves
According to Bob’s graph, the growth and stagnation periods tend to last about 16 years, on average. The current period is close to 12 years in duration, meaning there may be “another cycle or two before the market
I really don’t know, and I’m sure there are rooms full of people scratching their heads, consulting their sources, and graphing like crazy. I recently
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