| Cushman & Wakefield also shared more positive stats yesterday at the firm's quarterly overview breakfast. New York Metro COO Joe Harbert and managing director of research Ken McCarthy note that Manhattan vacancy declined nearly a point, from 11.6% to 10.8%—the first quarterly decline since Q2 '07, coinciding with the strongest quarter for new leasing activity since Q3 '06. We saw 6.9M SF of new office leases signed, bringing the mid-year total to 12.6M SF—an increase of 98% year over year. Ken suggests the markets will see vacancy swings in the near-term, as certain space is expected to enter the market before year's end. Sublease vacancy rates also declined to 2.4%, accounting for only 21.9% of all available office space in Manhattan, down from the 28.2% peak in April '09. |
| Property sales closed and under contract for transactions $10M and higher totaled $5.8B by mid-year, up 132% year over year and 75% from 1Q10. If sales volumes for the second half of the year continue to reflect that of the first half, overall property sales for the year will be off 64% from the '04 to '08 five-year average of $28B. But look on the bright side—this year's investment sales have already surpassed last year's total. Joe says as leasing fundamentals begin to improve, it's likely that investment sales volume should remain steady or increase into the second half of the year. Retail also experienced a surge in activity and a city-wide decrease in availability; of the seven tracked submarkets, it declined in five, including Madison Avenue above 57th, and remained stable in two. |
Vacancy On Decline
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