Atlanta Perimeter October 2020 – Key Take Aways

• Seeing a little bit of a pause in pace, possibly waiting for election.
• Definitely see a difference in those companies that are/were capitalized v. those who were not:  companies that are folding and others who are ready to buy.  Lots of liquidations and acquisitions.
• Robust activity on the “buy” side; developers are actively looking for sites/transactions.
• Groundbreaking on Six West College Park project October 15^th:  sixwestcollegepark.com.
• Low interest rates make the economics of ownership strong.
• Read the fine print of all of your agreements and contracts and be careful with your personal and business data.  Others want to get it and then turnaround and sell it.
• Multi-family and industrial continue to be hot everywhere.  Due to the port expansion, areas right outside of Savannah are seeing lots of growth and development.
• Starting to see signs of rebound in the public sector, probably due to collection of sales tax through online orders.
• Environmental consulting and assessment business is strong.  Starting to get more requests from banks on environmental work, as customers start defaulting on properties.  Banks end up with the properties and often inherit environmental issues that they have to remediate before they can re-sell the property.    Owners and buyers often inherit “hidden” issues, as well, which is why up front due diligence is important.
• Office clients are slowly going back into the workplace.  Still seeing some landlords being flexible and others not willing to cooperate.
• Still not seeing any real adjustments in pricing that buyers have been expecting and hoping for with the pandemic.  In fact, pricing has actually plateaued.