2011 Transaction Activity - How Did We Do?

From a sales standpoint how well did we do in 2011 compared to previous years?  Shown below are the criteria we used to tabulate the results:

• Sales information from the CoStar database
• Transactions closed between January 1st and December 31, 2011
• Investment properties only (no owner user)
• Property types - flex, industrial, mixed use, multifamily, office & retail
• Transactions with sales prices of $1 million or larger
• Arms length transactions (no partial conveyance of ownership)
• Transactions located between Kelso, WA and Eugene, OR including Bend

Based on these criteria the chart below compares the sales activity for 2011 with each of the preceding five years:

As you can see, the sales activity for 2011 has increased significantly over the preceding two years and was almost back to the volume of 2008.  But we are a long way from the heady days prior to the Great Recession.

We then analyzed the 272 transactions by property type:

Multifamily and retail properties continue to dominate the property transactions but office and industrial are just beginning to show signs of life.

Of the 272 transactions, 139 had broker representation on both sides of the transaction.  Fifty-two had no broker representation.  The remaining 81 transactions had only one side of the transaction represented.

If you add it all up, there were a total of 359 paydays (2 x 139 + 81).  So if you want to know your personal market share of all the broker paydays divide your number of paydays by 359.

Shown below are the lending sources for the 272 transactions:

Of those transactions where the lender was identified, 34% were either all cash transactions or seller financed.  Although that sounds like a lot that is considerably less than previous years where it was in the 40% or more range.  The banks continue to be the predominant lender in the market.

A new addition to our report this quarter is to rank the top brokerage firms based on closed transactions.  Shown below are the top 8 real estate brokerage firms based on total broker representation of closed transactions:

The commercial real estate brokerage community is not dominated by any one firm.  In fact, Marcus & Millichap, who is ranked #1 on the list with 29 broker representations, represents on 8% of the total market.  The top 8 firms represent only 36% of the total market.

Assuming there are no major economic catastrophies in 2012 (I'm thinking Europe), this coming year should continue the upward thrend in commercial real estate.