Commercial Real Estate Investment Specialist Sees Several Bright Spots in Otherwise Shrinking Central Florida Market

ORLANDO, FL – While Central Florida’s commercial real estate market continues to shrink, there are several bright spots, says Joe Rossi, (top right photo) senior vice president of investment services at Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida in Orlando.

Rossi, who left St. Joe Commercial almost four years ago to join the Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida team, has more than 15 years of experience as a commercial property investment specialist studying the Central Florida market.

“Overall, activity this year has slowed considerably,” Rossi said. “Very few owners are putting product out to market,” he said.

Rossi attributes the slowdown in new properties to the financial markets.

“With the recent financial market woes, fewer buyers are able to secure acceptable levels of financing on their acquisitions,” Rossi explained.

But that’s not all bad.

“We’ve had four or five gangbuster years and it would be impossible to keep that pace,” Rossi said. “Everyone in the market understands we needed a little correction, and that’s what we’re getting.”

And market conditions should improve within the next 12-24 months.

“As the credit markets loosen up and money becomes more available, the investment market will come back, but there’s so much uncertainty about capital availability right now and that has caused a lot of hesitancy from both buyers and sellers,” he said.

Rossi said owner occupied facilities are seeing strong signs of growth.

“For business owners who can secure financing through their corporate banking sources, there will probably not be a better time to acquire commercial property,” Rossi said.

“Market conditions are best right now for business owners who want to buy what we call hybrid properties – facilities they can occupy with excess space that they can lease to other tenants,” he said.

Rossi said the downtown Orlando market may be poised for a boom when financial markets settle.

“The office market downtown is in great shape,” Rossi said. “We haven’t seen nearly as much overbuilding during this cycle as we’ve seen in the past and that’s allowed occupancy levels to stay pretty much in check,” he said.

“Concerning our local economy, Central Florida has been on everyone’s A-list for corporate relocation and expansion for quite some time because wage scales are lower than other metro areas, there’s no state income tax and we have a generally business-friendly environment here.


" But one of our biggest assets was the low cost of housing. Since the real estate boom, we have lost that cachet, and a lot of corporate relocation and corporate expansion people think maybe Central Florida is not a first option now as a result,” he said.


For more information, please contact:
Joe Rossi, Senior Vice President, Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida 407-423-1200
Jeffrey S. Sweeney, SIOR, President, Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida, 407-481-5387
Beth Payan or Larry Vershel, LV Communications, 407-644-4142 (fax: 4410)