Today’s the day for the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book, a survey of the state of the economy that they do eight times a year. In general, there’s cautious optimism with plenty of signs of slight improvement. But factor, in addition to slow progress on bringing back jobs, came through loud and clear as a concern: commercial real estate.
This was particularly true in the Dallas District, where “construction was at ‘historically low levels.'” In the rest of the country, commercial real estate conditions were characterized as “weak” or “deteriorating.” This offset the hope that exists in some arenas, like manufacturing:
The outlook in the Dallas District was mixed, with most manufacturers expressing cautious optimism about the near term and construction-related manufacturers expressing pessimism about the future largely due to expectations of prolonged weakness in commercial real estate.
