by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2011 04:23:00 PM

Victor Calanog, VP Research & Economics at Reis, Inc presented their quarterly briefing on commercial property sectors today. A few highlights:

• Apartments: Vacancy rates are falling and rents rising (see: Reis: Apartment Vacancy Rates fell sharply in Q1, Lowest in almost three years). Calanog expects rents to increase 4%+ in 2011 and 2012, and for the apartment vacancy rate to fall to 5.5% this year (the lowest since 2001). Note that the Reis survey is just for large cities, but this decline in vacancy rates is happening just about everywhere.

• Offices: Vacancy rates are falling and rents rising, but the recovery will be more gradual for offices than apartment. Calanog is expecting rents to rise slightly this year, and about 2.5% in 2012. He expects the vacancy rate to fall to 17.1% this year from the 17.5% in Q1 (see: Reis: Office Vacancy Rate declines slightly in Q1)

• Malls: Malls are still under pressure and Calanog expects vacancy rates at neighborhood and community shopping centers to rise slightly and rents to fall slightly this year. (see: Reis: Mall Vacancy rates increase in Q1). Reis reported that malls are seeing an echo effect from the loss of anchor tenants earlier in the cycle as smaller tenants leave malls with no anchor tenant (either by contract or when their lease expires).