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Commercial Real Estate: "Ghost Malls" in the Making?
One in Ten Mall Stores Are Vacant
By Bob Stokes
Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:30:00 ET
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As I drive down nice streets in nice parts of town, I see reminders of the boom that was.
 
Yes, there they are -- handsomely constructed strip malls, still looking quite new. Yet they also look like "ghost malls." In the absence of customers, all that's missing to complete the scene are a few tumbleweeds to blow across virtually empty parking lots.
 
The statistics in this excerpted article confirmed my own observations:
 
"In the wake of the still-lingering economic downturn, vacancy rates at shopping centers — of both the "classic mall" and "strip mall" varieties — are at their highest levels since the twentieth century.
 
"The Wall Street Journal reports on new figures that show a 9.1% average vacancy rate in malls in the top 80 U.S. markets, and 11.1% for strip malls."
consumerist.com (4/7)
 
And many of the stores that are open appear to have few patrons. 

The commercial real estate market peaked in 2007. This chart from the October 2010 Elliott Wave Theorist shows the still-unfolding trend:

 
Commercial real estate's downward trend goes beyond suburban malls. Much office space in business districts is empty. Read this excerpt from the September 2010 Elliott Wave Theorist:
 
"Consider an article...about Atlanta’s office-space glut. ('Atlanta Awash in Empty Offices Struggles to Recover From Building Binge,' Bloomberg, 9/14/10.):
 
"The city has 'a 21.2 percent vacancy rate....'
 
"'Developers put 3.6 million square feet of office space on the Atlanta market from 2008 to the first quarter of 2010…about two thirds of that space was empty on June 30.'"
 
"'On the city’s main drag, Peachtree Street, there is 'a new Atlanta office tower that sits 98 percent empty.' Former BellSouth headquarters is '73 percent vacant.'"
 
"'Commercial real estate seized by banks after defaults on loans bundled into securities is higher in Atlanta than in any other city.'"
 
"'Bank of America Plaza, the Southeast’s tallest building…has $363 million of debt…. Bank of America Corp., the largest tenant in the 55-story tower, plans to reduce its space to 13 percent from 30 percent and cut its rent to about half the current $36.65 a square foot.'"
 
"'Atlanta currently has enough empty office space to fill the equivalent of 24 Bank of America Towers, with vacancies of 30 million square feet at midyear.'"
 
Readers of the New York Times bestseller Conquer the Crash (now in its second edition) read this advice five years before the 2007 commercial real estate top (p. 156):
 
"If you are in the real estate business, wrap up any sales deals you are working and get out of all investment real estate holdings that are not special situations about which you know much more than the market."
 
"If you rent...office space, make sure that your lease...has a clause lowering your rent if like units are reduced in price to new renters."
 

Tags: commercial real estate, conquer the crash, credit crisis, deflation, foreclosures, housing prices, Robert Prechter, subprime lending
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