Jason Hershey

I spent the day with an investor looking at single-family homes for sale in the Central District. As we were looking at what was for sale, we were also keeping our eyes open for "For Rent" signs, so she could call and check what was available and what other landlords were charging. Amazingly, we didn't see any.

Well, so much for my recommendation to new landlords about how to find rental rates! This made me wonder... why no signs? Does it mean there are no rentals available in the area, or does it mean landlords don't like posting signs for some reason? Perhaps they don't want vandals to know they have an empty unit? Are they afraid the Occupy people will occupy their property? Perhaps they simply have better ways to find tenants.

My experience is that "For Rent" signs are a great way to find potential tenants. But, Craigslist.com has quickly taken over that role, so perhaps there is no need for signs anymore. What do you think? got any ideas?

(Reposted from my Tellus Real Estate Solutions Blog - www.tellusre.com/blog)

And, here are the slides for our Landlord 101 class, where we cover finding tenants and keeping tenants.  Included in the handouts our sample lease forms and a great handout from our friends at LT Services, a great eviction service company.

Here are the slides from the class.

And, here are the handouts on my SkyDrive

Below is a summary of sales for March 2011, from the Commercial Broker's Association (CBA). I note the source because it is likely that not all sales that occurred are included. CBA data is a mixture of sales reported by their member agents and researching of sales that happened outside the system.

I have compared these numbers to similar data available from LoopNet, the national
commercial real estate listing service. After reviewing the data, I believe the CBA data to be the most accurate and useful for our local market and for tracking prices and trends in the local market. Occasionally, LoopNet has data that does not appear on CBA, which is the reason that I subscribe to their service. If you would like to have a complete analysis done of comparable sales for your property, please let me know. When performing analysis for a client, I compare and combine data from both sources.

March 2011 Sales

King County-There was a slight increase in the number of sales from February in King County, with 34 total sales. Only 2 property sales were foreclosure trustee sales. Sales were about evenly mixed between the 4 main property types: Industrial, Retail, Office, and Land.

The average price per square foot for each property type was: Industrial-$44/SF, Retail-$171/SF, and Office-$148/SF. Commercial land sales averaged $121/SF, after removing 2 residential land sales from the mix. Those two residential land deals would have lowered the average $/SF to just $5.84/SF

You may notice that the price per square foot for Office and Retail properties jumped significantly from February. This partially due to the lower number of foreclosure sales in each category.

Pierce County-Pierce County had a healthy increase in the number of sales. In March, 22 sales closed, more than in January/February combined. Sales were evenly mixed between property types. One thing to note, though, is that five of the office sales were of Frontier Bank locations throughout the county, by Union bank to the FDIC. I believe the result of this is an inflation of the average price per square foot for Office space. Typical sellers should not expect this kind of pricing in Pierce county.

The average price per square foot for each property type was: Industrial-$51/SF, Retail-$65/SF, and Office-$148/SF (again, this number is inflated by the Frontier Bank sales). Commercial land sales averaged $6.45/SF. The sale price for Commercial land is likely lower than typical due to sales transaction between government entities for several properties.

Snohomish County-There were only 4 sales reported by CBA for Snohomish County in March. Snohomish County commercial buyers seem intent on focusing on specific property types each month. In January, it was Industrial. In February, it was Office. In March, all the sales were Retail Properties. Also, all the properties were located in the southwest corner of the county, along the I-5 corridor. Another item to note is that half the deals were with cash buyers.

The average price per square foot for these Retail properties was $143/SF.

Below is a summary of sales for February 2011, from the Commercial Broker's Association (CBA). I note the source because it is likely that not all sales that occurred are included. CBA data is a mixture of sales reported by their member agents and researching of sales that happened outside the system.

February 2011 Sales

King County-King County continued its strong sales trend from January, with another 29 commercial property sales closed. 4 property sales were foreclosure trustee sales. Sales were primarily of Industrial and Retail properties. There were 4 office property sales (2 of which were foreclosures).

The average price per square foot for each property type was: Industrial-$53/SF, Retail-$106/SF, and Office-$106/SF. Commercial land sales averaged $111/SF

Pierce County-Pierce County had a major drop in sales from January's 13, with only 5 sales closed in February. There was one Office building and one Commercial Land sale.

3 of the sales were of Retail properties, averaging $91/SF, and there were no Industrial property sales.

Snohomish County-There were 8 sales were reported by CBA in February, up slightly from January. In a major switch from January, when most all the sales were of Industrial properties, February sales were almost all Office properties. There was only one sale each of Industrial, Retail, or Commercial Land properties. The Office sales were scattered throughout the southern half the county. Two were foreclosure sales.

The average price per square foot for these Office properties was $107/SF.

In the February newsletter, I sent out the January Sales summary for all three counties. I didn't go into a lot of details, so let me know if you need more information.

Snohomish County

6 sales were reported by CBA in January. All but one were industrial properties, located in Everett/Mukilteo, Lynnwood, and Monroe. The average price was just over $100/SF

An impressive 29 sales were reported for King County in January. In King County, the majority of sales were Office properties, followed closely by Industrial properties. There was a few land and Retail sales also. Prices for office properties averaged $146/SF and industrial properties averaged $83/SF.

Pierce County

13 sales were reported for Pierce County in January. These were almost evenly divided between Industrial and Retail properties. Industrial properties averaged just under $70/SF and retail properties averaged almost $127/SF.