Old school evaluation tactics needed - what methods do you use to get the real picture of vacancy and market health without relying on research staff and Costar?
Even though Costar might present data that is more diversely sourced than the big brokerage staff researcher ie. they call tenants, brokers and owners to try and get lease details. These sources do not always have an aligned interest in tranparency. Especially owners who are trying to fill vacancies in their buildings might fudge a little on the lease rate they obtained when communicating with the Costar rep. Leases are not public record so any of these data harvesting companies will come up against human biases and fluffery. What old school tactics do you use to evaluate a property or submarket health or what did you use before all of this aggregate research was available? Thanks in advance.
[{"id": "ihh35fj", "text": "Just visiting apartment buildings in person as prospective tenant with a BS background story.  Leasing/building staff are often happy to show you several units (if these are for rent).  You can then see if they are actually vacant, presently occupied coming.  If everyone has multiple vacancies then you have a good idea of where things stand in market.", "replies": [{"id": "ihh6jcv", "text": "The beauty of real estate right?! You can go visit. I am primarily in office, retail and industrial so that makes it a little bit trickier. Apartments are wonderful for this reason, you can also tell a lot about the property by how it\u2019s visibly maintained, the parking lot, common areas etc. Thanks for the reply!", "replies": [{"id": "ihh9shh", "text": "It\u2019s not only for apartments, for retail and sometimes office, just seeing the vacancies in a strip plaza or empty parking lots or vacant spaces in office buildings can give an idea.  If every retail strip mall has vacancies or not, you get an idea of the market.\nMany national CRE firms like CBRE, JLL, Cushman, Colliers, etc.. publish market reports for various commercial asset classes.  Mainly larger markets thou.  \nReports vary in their actual figures but if all the large brokerage firms reporte point in one direction, that\u2019s likely the direction.  If they conflict or disagree a little , maybe market is unsettled.  And so on.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "ihhpa7j", "text": "Google tenants. Also streetview is good for going back in time too. \n\nCheck older advertisement flyers. A lot are still hosted as PDF somewhere", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ihi1t28", "text": "Drive the area and do your own survey work. The obvious examples are rust belt cities that have lots of vacant office and industrial buildings. That will be boarded up industrial. Plenty broker signs out for leases or sales on older buildings.\n\nSome of these cities are using historical tax credits and tax abatements to convert vacant office buildings into apartments. \n\nThis would be a sign of high office vacancy. Another aspect of the rust belt is flat to declining population. This is a region wide issue that will prevent even desirable sub markets from seeing much rent growth and rent increases.\n\nThere are some exceptions such as Pittsburgh that also has undermined land from coal mines and steep hills that makes it difficult or expensive to acquire large plots of flat land for big distribution centers such as Amazon or big box retail centers.\n\nNetworking with honest brokers helps. Getting feed back from 2 or 3 brokers can validate the info if it is consistent.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ihl1ty5", "text": "STDB see CCIM", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]