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Austin Office Market is One to Watch, Report Says

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Projected rent growth and the region's population boom have combined to make Austin a hot office market, according to one national real estate firm.

Sperry Van Ness included Austin in its 2007 Top 10 Markets to Watch Report. The report examines a range of economic factors likely to have an impact the future of office investment. Unlike other lists that rank cities by current real estate market data, the Markets to Watch Report looks at the markets that show the greatest potential for income growth based on forecasted trends.

Austin was selected because of the market's 7.25 percent rise in rents projected in 2008 coupled with the tremendous population growth, the largest of any of the markets evaluated in the report, according to Sperry Van Ness.

In addition to Austin, the other cities on Sperry Van Ness' list are Central New Jersey, Charlotte; Columbia, S.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Houston; Little Rock; New York city, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.

"It is important to review a matrix of forward looking economic factors when deciding where to acquire property because they are important forward looking indicators of a property's financial performance in the future," says Jerry Anderson, COO and president of Sperry Van Ness' National Advisor Organization. "Cap rate is only one small piece of the performance story."