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What, we worry? Office development performs a balancing act
- January 1, 2018: Vol. 30, Number 1

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What, we worry? Office development performs a balancing act

by Michael Lester

George Bernard Shaw once was asked, “Who is smarter: man or woman?” He replied, “Which man? Which woman?”

It’s hard to generalize. We think locally, and we usually act locally. There are national developers — Brookfield Asset Management, Hines, Tishman Speyer, etc. — but, as Jaime Fink, managing director of HFF, points out, “Every market has a developer that brings a unique skill set to the local market. For example, Nashville will have a different developer than Seattle.” Nevertheless, if we were to generalize, if we were to look at the Big Picture nationally, it’s a very nice picture.

“There’s no dramatic overbuilding of office anywhere in the country,” says Jeff Kanne, president and CEO of National Real Estate Advisors. Fink agrees: “Over the last six to seven years, we have had more absorption than delivery.”

But while there may not be overbuilding, there certainly has been building. National office forecasts produced by CBRE Ec

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