| As a Pittsburgh native, PricewaterhouseCoopers director of real estate research Charles DiRocco wasn’t thrilled with the name, but speaking at the recent ULI real estate trends and forecast meeting, he said the Steel City didn’t go overboard on development during boom: It’s been stable. And, for a change, boring is good. | |
| We snapped Charles at the Omni Mandalay in Las Colinas last week. (Between the Rangers excitement and many corporate relocations and deals, we've been stacking up the news.) Charles says Pittsburgh’s property values and rents have been flat and development sporadic—but investments there yield steady returns without much, if any, upside. Other cities should be as lucky, he says. What once had been a major manufacturing center with many corporate HQs is now cleaned up and has a high ratio of workers in government, education, and medical fields, he says. | |
| We caught up with Charles and HFF’s Adam Herrin, the ULI Young Leaders chairman for the last two years. Adam was pleasantly surprised to take home the Volunteer of the Year award—Dallas ULI is all volunteer-led. As for his day job (which he does get paid for) he's busier because the debt and equity markets are getting active again. Charles says local developers learned not to take out recourse loans in the early '90s and housing prices never got out of control in the recent cycle. With relatively tempered office construction today, he says vacancies have a shot to drop into the high teens over the next few years. Apartment builders can do well, though, constructing into growth waves, but investors in existing properties always face new competition. | |
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