August 16, 2008

Tim Leigh’s Weekend Market Report
Hoff & Leigh, Inc.
4445 Northpark Drive, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
August 16, 2008

Attached is our complete listing of all properties for sale in Colorado Springs, based on property type - office, industrial and condo. This is the most complete listing that we are aware of. It’s our goal to provide this information, updated weekly. We develop these lists by basic research and cross-checking data points from the PPCIE, local broker's individual web sites, The Turner Book and any other public information domain we can find.

You are receiving this information because, at some point, you asked or a friend referred your name to be included in our e-mail Insider’s List. If you no longer wish to receive this information, send an e-mail reply to me (tim@hoffleigh.com) and ask to be removed. Alternatively, if you know someone who could benefit from the receipt of this information, forward this e-mail to them, and suggest they contact us, so we can consider adding them to our exclusive list.

All Market Average Office Building Sale Price PSF = $109.04
There are currently 135 office buildings for sale (4 more than last week).
This is 1,316,060 square feet, which represents a total market value of $148,415,593.

All Market Average Industrial Building Sale Price PSF = $69.60
There are currently 93 industrial buildings for sale (3 more than last week).
This is 1,741,406 square feet, which represents a total market value of $121,202,925.

All Market Average Office Condo Sale Price PSF = $160.02
There are currently 93 office condos for sale (1 more than last week).
This is 190122 square feet, which represents a total market value of $30,422,617.
Interior build-outs for shell space ranges between $50 to $100 psf.

All Market Average Industrial Condo Sale Price PSF = $83.01
There are currently 31 industrial condos for sale (The same as last week).
This is 106,962 square feet, which represents a total market value of $8,878,523.

More listings and lower prices - that seems to be the general trend of the market.

General Comments: Its amazing what keeps you up at night; thoughts of the market, crickets chirping, a cat dozing on my chest. My goal is to have this report collated, written and sent on Friday. That it did not get-out by Friday will give you some indication of how wild the market has been in the last week. It’s Saturday morning and I’m finally able to take a quiet moment to process the last week.

At your request, we have a new addition to the data-port coming next week. I have engaged in a partnership with my friends at Unified Title to start compiling the closed-sale information from the El Paso County Tax Assessor’s office. This compilation will come directly from the assessor’s office. The heavy lifting will be done by Unified Title, who is committed, as are we, to providing good information so you can make sound business decisions. If you want to know more about Unified Title, call Brian Cooper directly at 719-233-2020. Heck, you can tell him I said he should buy you lunch!

We took-on several new listings last week. Among them were a 31,000 sf flex building and a 47,000 sf mixed use building. They are polar opposites. The flex building, 2868 Janitell Road is the cleanest property (of its kind) that I’ve seen in 30 years. We priced it at $100 psf. Alternatively, 3645 Jeannine Drive is a turn-around opportunity caused by poor management. It is priced at $35 psf. I like to say “Equity is the part of your balance sheet that makes you feel good until you sell.” and “You can take your equity as you go along by not making any improvements to the property, or you can take your equity at the time of sale.” You don’t get both. These properties are good examples of each case.

The bank-repo list continues. We listed 3707 Parkmoor Village Drive for sale. The price is a $50,000 reduction from the debt carried by the bank. It produces approximately $60,000 NOI. The opportunity is for a new owner to bring better management systems and less debt and by merely passing the utilities on to the existing tenants (100% leased), the cash flow improves to approximately $66,000. The asking price is $620,000 – wink; wink; wink!

The rain this week has produced the siren call of complaints about leaking roofs. We use John Fleming, Weathercraft Roofing (719-382-8511) and Jeff Pierce, Peak View Roofing (719-491-2589).

Here is a new trend. My friend, Rob Gottesman, DC, who has a chiropractor for over 20 years, told me that he’s moving away from the Broadmoor area. A national consultant told him that the demographic in the Broadmoor, “old family-old money”, doesn’t believe in chiropractic care and that the Broadmoor area is the worst in Colorado Springs for that type of business. Rob’s answer is a move to the North/Northeast part of the city. The new business model for Chiropractic, which used to be professional/medical is now more retail oriented. The new model focuses on high foot-traffic, high visibility and high-volume in Kiosk-type space of 600 – 1,000 sf.

I’m continually amazed how well Holly & RD Trinidad are doing. Of course I’m biased. As you know, Holly is my daughter. RD is the son-in-law. What do they say, “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree?” I guess that means Holly & I are both nuts! My contention has always been that I could train a reasonably smart monkey to handle commercial leasing. And, while they are not monkeys, they have proven the point. In spite of the fact that they’ve only been in the commercial real estate business since January, Holly has leased-up more space in the past month – space that had previously been empty for over a year - than most, more experienced agents handle over the course of several months. She has shown a real propensity for the business and a canny ability to understand customer’s needs and, I’m told, she wears nice shoes! RD hasn’t been a surprise. He is merely living up to my expectations. He understands investments; ROI, NOI, XNT and other industry specific facets to the building valuation and sale process. For a young man, he has a well developed negotiation skill-set and a very calming demeanor. RD found Infinity Engineering by cold calling. He listened and discovered their needs. He found them a “to-be-built” new construction project and worked through the entire process until it closed last week. For a Rookie, he hit a home-run!

Normally, placing a church in a commercial building is a sign that the building is no longer viable for the commercial purposes originally intended. Congratulations to the Craddock’s for recognizing this and turning the former shopping center at Hancock & Academy into a special-use center that now houses several churches. It is the 1st Church Strip Center that I’ve ever seen. I consider this concept to be somewhat brilliant, and I find it to be terribly entertaining. I guess if you don’t like the menu on your church this Sunday, you walk next door next week. Sermon boring you? Go next door!

Classified Ads: I have 2 friends that want to sell the motor-homes. If you know anybody that wants to purchase a very clean gas-guzzler, give me a buzz and I’ll hook you up.

Here’s some politically-correct BS: It’s a matter of history, that when General Eisenhower found the victims of the death camps, he ordered all possible photographs taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the death camps and even made them bury the dead.

He did this, because in his words, “Get it all on record now. Get the films. Get the witnesses. Because somewhere, down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

Within the past few months, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offended” a Muslim population which claims The Holocaust never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear gripping the world and how easily many people are giving into it.

It’s now more than 60 years after the 2nd World War and I’m forwarding this note, which was sent to me as a memorial chain in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians & 2000 Catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beat, experimented-on and humiliated while the German people looked the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iraq & Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust is a “myth”, it’s important to make sure the world never forgets.

I wonder how many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center will never have happened because it offends someone?

I hope you had a profitable week and next week is better!

Sincerely,

TJL
Tim Leigh
719-337-9551
Tim@HoffLeigh.com


To view our Office Matrix List please click below
http://hoffleigh.com/OfficeInsider.aspx

To view our Industrial Matrix List please click below
http://hoffleigh.com/IndustrialInsider.aspx

To view our Office Condo Matrix please click below
http://hoffleigh.com/HLIOfficeCondos.aspx