Hawaii Real Estate Forecast – Part 2

In January, I presented a 2009 summary and 2010 forecast presentation on the Hawaii Retail Market for CCIM.  This video is the second of three parts of the presentation (the powerpoint slides used in the presentation are available or download here).

This video focuses on Shopping center vacancy, new tenants and sales ideas. Outlined below are the main points of the video:

Recent Vacancies:
For Circuit City, most of their vacated space has not been released. About two-thirds of their stores are still vacant, which means there are 45,000 SF concrete boxes that are sitting vacant.

For Hawaii, we’re keeping our eye on Blockbuster, as they occupy approximately 120,000 SF  here.  Should they decide to  pull out of the market, we’d be losing 20+ stores at about 5,000 SF a piece, many located in shopping centers.

Expanding Retailers:
Slides 11 and 12 list Tenants who have opened in 2009, spent money, made the investment, and took the risk. These are very few and far between.

Ideas for Landlords:
The key is to create momentum, and increase advertising. Hire merchandising consultants because most Tenants are not capable of producing great storefronts.  They could gain a lot from a professional consultant. Twitter campaigns are working for impulse daily specials, such as a restaurant tweeting a daily special.

Is the commercial real estate market in Hawaii at the bottom?

Earlier this week, while canvassing prospects for one of our projects, I spoke with a local company who invited me over to discuss their needs.  While meeting with them, we spoke about long-term planning, and the five, ten, and twenty-year plans that their board has been working on.  They believe that now is the time to start looking seriously for land here in Honolulu.  While they currently have a facility that is adequate, their long-term needs are for much larger properties and buildings.  They believe, and we concur, that the land prices for them will be severely discounted (up to 50%) from the peak of the market in 2005 and 2006.

Another client recently let us know they are back in the market to buy, because they believe the market is beginning to hit bottom.  It’s not that important to find the exact bottom, but to jump back in near the bottom, because over time, the only way is up.  This client bought nothing in 2005-2007, when they believed property prices were  inflated with low returns and unrealistic expectations for rent growth.  Over the past four real estate cycles, we have seen great wealth created by the long term players who jumped back in near the bottom of the cycle.

To be a great investor, all you have to do is judge the top 1/2 of the market cycle versus the bottom 1/2 of the Hawaii commercial real estate cycle.

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