Real Property Association of Canada survey shows Canadian commercial real estate markets holding up well

TORONTO, Aug. 6 /CNW/ - Today, the Real Property Association of Canada(REALpac) release a new quarterly economic survey This survey measures executives' current and future outlook in three areas including overall real estate conditions, real estate asset values, and availability of capital. It captured the thoughts of 54 leading realestate executives, including CEOs, presidents, board members, and other executives from a broad set of real estate sectors including owners and assetmanagers, financial services providers, and building operators and related service providers, of office buildings, retail shopping centres, industrial buildings,hotels, multi-family residential (apartment buildings), and seniors residences. The topline findings of the survey include the following: - Current conditions are seen as quite weak in comparison to a year ago; significant improvement is not expected in the next year. - Respondents report a significant decline in asset values and have little hope for near-term improvement; U.S. asset values appear to be more stressed. - According to respondents, access to capital is severely restricted today and any recovery is expected to be anemic. - Canadian sentiment is in-line with U.S. sentiment, which has ticked up since last quarter.

"it will take economic stability anda return of the financial sector to get things moving again" while another added, "we won't see a rebound until we see some job creation and confidence in retail sales". Availability of Capital According to respondents, access to capital is severely restricted todayas compared to a year ago. One respondent indicated that "money is available;it's just more expensive and comes with more strings attached". In the future,respondents expect any recovery to be slow and weak.
Real estate investors and developers make decisions today based on sentiment about tomorrow, so this survey is an important current and leading indicator for our industry Members currently own in excess of $150 Billion CAD in real estate assets located in the major centres across Canada. Members include real estate investment trusts, publicly traded and large private companies, banks,brokerages, crown corporations, investment dealers, life companies, lenders,and pension funds. . For more information, Source : www.realpac.ca and www.fpladvisorygroup.com.