Dallas-Fort Worth’s 100-plus degree temperatures are not the only things heating up North Texas this summer. The commercial real estate industry is also as hot as ever, which is not usually the case during summer months.
Typically, summer is a slow time in the commercial real estate community, due to decision-makers taking time off to travel with their families. Brokers often follow suit, making deals difficult to put together. But this summer, the deal flow is as strong as ever. Businesses and brokers can’t wait until the fall or fourth quarter to make expansion decisions; instead, they have passed up their trips to Colorado, Wyoming, and the beaches to battle the Texas heat.
Because space options have become so limited, tenants need to act quickly when something becomes available. Compared to past summers, there are less space options available and many tenants need more expansion options. The attitude of “Let’s just wait until fall” has long passed.
I recently worked with a client who was planning to renew in the company’s current location. But suddenly, due to new business, needed to double their space and find a facility to accommodate that growth—within two weeks! We had to work around the clock to not only find the perfect space for the client, but to do so in such a short time frame in the summer season. The client was supposed to go to Europe with his family, but stayed back to decide on a facility.
Another project involved a client opening its first district headquarters in Texas. The company wanted to be operational in North Texas within 60 days, so they could quickly get up and running in the “hot” Texas market. Coming from the Northeast, it was their first industrial property tour during a Texas summer. Let’s just say we ran out of all the bottled water I had brought along, and we all looked like we jumped in a swimming pool once the tour was done.
Summer vacations in the commercial real estate industry may now be a thing of the past, but that is fine by me. The hot summer months are just preparing us for an even better fourth quarter and further proving how the CRE industry in DFW is booming. With this being said I would like to start a new trend in summer property tours—shorts and flip flops!
Blake Anderson, managing director and principal at Cassidy Turley, oversees the firm’s industrial services group in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Contact him at [email protected].
