Fickling & Company Realtors

Most people who want to invest in real estate start off with single family residential properties. They do this because they are more familiar with residential property, and the thought of owning commercial property is scary to the new investor. I know investors who own multiple single family residences. However, because of the high maintenance…

Whew!!  2007 – “That Was The Year That Was”.  That statement, the modified title of a 1970’s TV series, poignantly describes our past year in the world of Commercial Real Estate.  We saw a lot: frenzied buying, unbelievably low cap rates, non-recourse money, a lot of mezz debt and equity, 100% financing and THEN almost…

There were no significant changes relating to the industrial real estate inventory during the first quarter of 2007.  The vacancies in the market remain stable at about 4,000,000 square feet with a 75% occupancy rate.  Again, this vacancy was mainly attributed to large blocks of industrial space such as the 2,000,000 square foot Brown &…

Improving fundamentals across all property types is drawing a greater amount of investors to value-added assets. While there are still investors focusing on acquiring stable, well-leased assets, others have shifted their attention to buying value-added properties that offer income and value appreciation and higher returns through retenanting, repositioning, and/or the releasing of available space.  It…

Mark-to-Market Accounting is assigning a value to a financial instrument or asset, based on current market price or the fair-value of the asset. The term originated with futures trading a century ago. When taking a position, a trader, would deposit money on the margin to protect the Exchange against loss. At the end of the…

Buy or sell?  List my property or keep it off the market until the market turns around?  Engage the expertise of a seasoned commercial real estate broker or try to handle myself?  These are all questions commercial real estate investors are faced with on a daily basis. One thing I think we are all keenly…

In our last article, we stated that we thought the housing market slump would continue through year end and start to stabilize in early 2008.  Unfortunately, there has not been any news that changes our belief.  Some of the recent statistics indicate that we may still be too optimistic. The Commerce Department reported on December…

The first quarter of 2007 has been a busy one in the Commercial Development Department. At Lullwater at Saluda Pointe, our apartment development in the Columbia, South Carolina suburb of Lexington, we have opened the beautiful leasing office for business and the lease up process has begun in earnest. We expect our first residents to move…