Robert Bach
"Expect commercial real estate leasing market fundamentals to soften through 2009," predicts the senior vice president and chief economist at Grubb & Ellis Co. headquarters in Santa Ana, CA.Bach bases his somber evaluation largely on the growing unemployment sector.
"The labor market has deteriorated sharply in the past three months," he points out.
The October unemployment rate hit 6.5 percent, the highest since February 1994, while employers have shed nearly 1.2 million payroll jobs this year, more than half of them coming in August, September and October.
"Total job losses may approach the 2.7 million total recorded during and after the 2001 recession, while the unemployment rate could exceed 7.8 percent, the peak registered in June 1992 following the 1990-91 recession," Bach says. For his market evaluations, he uses federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and Grubb & Ellis in-house research data.
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