San Diego housing recovery expected to slow

San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Roger Showley covered Beacon Economics' lastest economic conference in San Diego on Friday, May 21st. In addition to the recent conference in Los Angeles, I also wrote the sections on residential and commercial real estate for this conference book, one of which was cited in Showley's piece:

"Office vacancies, currently about 19.3 percent, will fall only to 13 percent over the next four years as employment growth remains sluggish. Industry norms consider a healthy office vacancy rate to be less than 10 percent.

“Looking ahead to the rest of 2010 through 2012, the health of the office market will be largely tied to the extent of increased government spending on biotech and technology,” said Patrick S. Duffy of MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors, who wrote the chapter on commercial real estate in the Beacon report.

High vacancies will mean bargains for investors in some office buildings, he said, but values will still end up 36 percent below their peak of 2006."

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