SAN FRANCISCO — Stores, apartment buildings and warehouses in the U.S. will set new vacancy records before a recovery takes hold in the job and commercial-property markets, according to a forecast by CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
Vacancies at industrial properties will climb to almost 16 percent in 2011, and apartment vacancies will top out at 8.1 percent this quarter, CBRE chief economist Ray Torto said in a presentation at the Urban Land Institute convention in San Francisco. The proportion of empty space at shopping centers and malls will increase to about 13 percent in 2010, he said.
U.S. commercial-real-estate prices have plunged almost 41 percent since October 2007, the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices show. The highest unemployment since 1983 has lowered demand for office and retail space and reduced consumer confidence and spending.
“We don’t have a sustainable recovery yet,” Kenneth Rosen, a University of California economist, said on a panel with Torto. “The problem is not supply but how we get demand back.”
U.S. office vacancies are forecast to reach 18.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011, just shy of 1991’s 19.1 percent record, Torto said.
