How would you go about completing a market analysis for office space demand within a city?
I work in economic development so I’m a little out of my depth on this. I have vacancy rates for the metro area, location quotients and # of employees by occupation, number and percentage of white collar jobs.
[{"id": "ikl53wo", "text": "What are your drivers of office demand? What location quotients do you have for office using employment sectors? How have those numbers changed over time? Are people entering or exiting your msa due to cost of living factors? \n\nWhat are firms doing to attract workers?", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikl70fw", "text": "Look up the city economic development or chamber of commerce group. They often have data that would be helpful to you.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikl92h4", "text": "Most of the big brokers publish office market reports which include leasing activity for large sub markets (you can Google, I.e., \u201cbroker\u201d, \u201ccity\u201d office report Q2 2022)", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikl9c24", "text": "Price per square foot comps by building class, per submarket, with filters for vacancy, WALT.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iklbpbw", "text": "Talk to the local office brokers who are active and have listings of the most product", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iklc49z", "text": "Hire a professional to do a market demand survey.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iklge6o", "text": "Reports published by CBRE, Cushman, et al. that cover specific sectors (retail, office, etc) by quarter. Reports by local business improvement districts, business/commerce interest groups, etc. This is productive if you're in a hot metro area. Otherwise, you'll need to commission a market study if there's not enough available info.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikm34di", "text": "Call your local big groups - jll/cbre/colliers/cushman - and ask to speak with the head researcher. They will most of the time love to help you and nerd out on this type of project.", "replies": [{"id": "iko8xl6", "text": "Agree with this. You can ask them about current tenant requirements in the market to get a better sense of immediate demand. They will often be willing to provide this info for free, but it depends on the individual and the market. What market are you looking for?", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikm3ybi", "text": "Do you know the average SF per office employee for your market? If you have that &amp; employment projections you should be able to project demand pretty easily. If you know any appraisers, ask them if they\u2019d be willing to share a Level C Market Analysis that they\u2019ve done recently.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ikmc3zv", "text": "Pull costar data on short term leasing rates over time. This will show if businesses are still trying to sublease space in your market since they decided to go permanently remote or are filling up their offices again post Covid.\n\nLook at expected new delivery of large projects and preleased percentage of that project. \n\nLook at long term employment growth for the MSA.\n\nTwo huge variables right now are 1 businesses trying to push people back into the office vs flex, vs perm remote. This will determine how quickly vacancy drops and there is no solid answer on this trend other than office demand will be lower due to some companies going permanently remote.\n\n2nd is the federal reserve raising rates to lower inflation and will likely cause employment to go down that will reduce office demand. The higher unemployment unfortunately will give more bargaining power to companies to force employees back to the office.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iknhky4", "text": "Population, job drivers, job announcement, the tech effect on Jobs (eg: for every Amazon job, there are 2 other Jobs created).  If you are buying office today, you are making a cowboy bet if it\u2019s class b &amp; c!  Folks are working from home and you need a sexy spade to entice tenants, so seeing more folks wanting to be in A.  \n\nTodays fundamentals are fucked so lots of voodoo! Or lies brokers and market makers are telling each other. \n\nBrokers tell developers that tenants want to see and touch new spec buildings, and new spec builders will cut rents materially so class b / c gets the shit end of the stick!", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]