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Is CRE Stabilizing?

Many commercial real estate investors are aggressively buying properties as they believe the industry's overall fundamentals are stabilizing and in certain sectors and regions, even improving, the second quarter PwC Real Estate Investor Survey found.

Mitch Roschelle, partner, U.S. real estate advisory practice leader, PwC, explained, "The significant lack of new supply over the past several years serves as the catalyst of the ongoing recovery. As tenant demand continues to grow, positive absorption has begun to drive rents up. The prospects of rent growth have driven much of the aggressive bidding by investors in certain top-performing markets."

Furthermore, investors are spooked by stock market volatility, weakening currencies and low fixed-income coupon rates, which in turn, he said, have brought them into hard assets such as precious metals, commodities and CRE.

Add to this the growing number of distressed assets that are being placed for sale as bank regulators put more pressure on lenders to deal with nonperforming loans.

While the multifamily sector has been leading CRE's recovery, investors are now turning to office properties as employment is improving and business profits are rising, the survey found.

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