May 27, 2009

May 24, 2009


Tim Leigh’s Weekend Market Report
Hoff & Leigh, Inc.
Leasing; Sales; Management; Buyer or Tenant Representation
4445 Northpark Drive, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
May 24, 2009

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 = $114.89 (DOWN from $116.94 last week.)
We are currently tracking 112 office buildings for sale.
This is 1,146,746 square feet, which represents a total market value of $131,754,500.

All Market Average Industrial Building Sale Price PSF = $79.22 (DOWN from $79.39 last week.)
We are currently tracking 97 industrial buildings for sale.
This is 1,309,336 square feet, which represents a total market value of $103,726,606.

Buildings that need play:

I was reviewing the list of top 10 lowest-cost office buildings for sale in Colorado Springs. We have a 30% market share. Damn, that sounds impressive. Truthfully, that means we have 3 of the lowest priced buildings for sale in Colorado Springs.

At $40.98 per square foot, 2760 North Academy Boulevard is the lowest price. It’s also under contract for cash. http://www.hoffleigh.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?ID=206 805 North Murray Boulevard is next at $44.19 per square foot. This is a 42,994 square foot office building that is well suited for many institutional uses. It could be a school; call center; etc. The Seller will lease or sell and he’s knowledgeable enough to know that he’ll have to assist with the financing. http://www.hoffleigh.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?ID=394 825 North Circle Drive is a fully leased concrete tilt-up. The Seller is just tired. He wants to move-on with life. At $60.71 per square foot, it ain’t handsome; it just delivers good, clean, wholesome, cold milk, every month. http://www.hoffleigh.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?ID=369

I’ve written that most of the buildings for sale in Colorado Springs aren’t really for sale. Most building owners remain on fishing trips and have not come-to-grips with the market’s current reality – we are in a class B office-building price-depression. Realizing that “talks-cheap”, I’ve decided to take my own advice and become a legitimate seller. I’ve lowered the price of one of my crown jewels, 2500 North Circle Drive. http://www.hoffleigh.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?ID=388 I had previously carried that building on my financial statement for $150 per square foot (that’s $1,068,900) on the theory that it would take at least that to replace the building. However, as I preach, “Equity is delusional until its cashed-in; and true prices are not determined by replacement costs, but by the amount a buyer will pay”. I’ve lowered my price to $725,000. That’s a drop from $150 to $100 per square foot. At that price, this property should sell. Heck, there’s about $90,000 in NOI until December 31, 2009. When the tenant vacates, this is a terrific 4 unit office building, easily re-tenanted and very suitable for a user who would like some other tenants to help row-the-boat. Did I mention there is NO deferred maintenance? Did I mention that this is a great 1031 exchange candidate? Or an alternative to the stock market?

Tim’s Market Report

“Arrg, Matey!” Today’s one of the reasons I founded The National Speak like a Pirate Day Foundation. (The foundation’s sole mission is to lobby Congress for the eradication of spurious holidays.) It’s Memorial Day (formerly known as Decoration Day), and as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so is Memorial day, which I’m afraid has lost its way and has become spurious.

According to General Orders No. 11, Grand Army of the Republic Headquarters, issued on May 30, 1868, the holiday was established as a 1 day “day of remembrance” to honor the fallen Union Soldiers by “strewing flower petals or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

Nobody honors fallen Union soldiers in southern states. There, they honor fallen Confederate soldiers by celebrating Confederate Memorial Day (if you live in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North or South Carolina or Texas); or you can celebrate Confederate Decoration Day in Tennessee; or you can celebrate Confederate Heroes Day in Texas. In Texas, I guess because the state’s so large, they celebrate their dead twice. OK, that’s weird.

The order goes on to say, “We are organized, Comrades, for the purpose among other things, of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors and Marines who united to suppress the late rebellion. What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead? We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. Let not neglect, nor the ravages of time testify to the present, or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

The traditional observation of honoring fallen heroes has lost its way. Now, while many people visit cemeteries to visit their dead relatives, not fallen war heroes, most just celebrate the holiday with picnics and barbecues and sporting events. More people now recognize Memorial day for the Indianapolis 500, The National Memorial Day Concert, The Bolder Boulder and as the official beginning of summer.

According to Professor David Blight of Yale University, the 1st memorial day was observed on May 1, 1865 by liberated slaves at the Washington Race Course in Charleston, South Carolina. The site was a mass grave for Union soldiers. The freed slaves disinterred the dead Union soldiers, properly re-buried them in individual graves, built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch, and declared the site an official Union soldier graveyard. On May 30, 1868, (3 years later) the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they’d picked from the countryside and decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the 1st Decoration Day.

Politically corrected history tells us Lincoln was the greatest president for suppressing the rebellion. However, reading below the surface and thinking about it, didn’t the founding fathers call for states to have the right to secede so they could hold the federal government in check from overexpansion? Realize; we weren’t the United States of America until after we killed 618,000 of each other in “the rebellion”. In fact, we killed more of each other in the Civil War than the combined other American war casualties, from the Revolution to the current war against terrorism. The Confederates killed over 110,000 Union soldiers directly and 250,000 more, who died after the fact by disease, infection, etc. The Union soldiers killed over 94,000 Confederates directly and another 165,000 by latent disease, infection etc. There were many individual battles where 10,000 or 12,000 or 16,000 or 17,000 deaths occurred. That’s individual battle deaths exceeding the total Bolder Boulder finishers in 1981 (7,264) or 1985 (16,826).

I believe “we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.” Here’s a sobering question, “Would you die for your country today?”

On a lighter note, later today, I’ll be thinking about work while I’m eating my KFC and drinking my Bud at the picnic. I’ll think about lost productivity caused by the holiday. Not the holiday itself; but the many days that lead to the holiday and after. Originally a road with good intention, we now use the holiday as a time to celebrate the beginning of summer more than honoring the fallen. Here’s the current reality. We lose the holiday; we lose the weekend surrounding the holiday; we lose the day after the holiday and the day after the day after the holiday; and we lose 1 or 2 days before the holiday. The Memorial-day “weekend” has grown to the Memorial-day “week” and costs the business of America lost production and revenue mounting to trillions. By the way, before Obama, “trillions” was a lot of money.

Of course I’ll be working on Memorial day. You know how that goes. Realtors are on-call every day. We’re champions of America, motherhood, apple pie and the American way; not the American System, which is also known as mercantilism, cronyism, favoritism, Hamiltonism, Lincolnism, Rooseveltism, and now, Obamaism.

Long hours of hard labor notwithstanding, my wife and I managed to get to Cancun last weekend. That trip was interesting, to say the least. Think about this; there are 28,000 hotel rooms in Cancun. While we were there, the city was 90% vacant. I know. Let that sink in. The official number was “only” 80%. Pick a number. By either measure, it was vacant. Count the loss. 28,000 X 90% = 25,200 VACANT rooms. If the average room creates $200 in nightly income (that’s a conservative, all-in, guess), the daily loss exceeds $5,000,000. The monthly loss exceeds $151,000,000. The annual loss exceeds $1,814,400,000 (Billion). At some point, there’s a large loss.

I interviewed Erandeni Abundis (Cancun’s Public Relations Manager for the USA, Canada & Asia); Juan Jose Loa Leos (Johnny Rockets Manager); and Paulina Feltrin (Public Relations Manager with the Ritz Carlton). They all sing from the same sheet; the global financial melt-down; the alleged drug terror & kidnappings and the swine-flu scare only killed one thing - tourism in Cancun. Cancun’s financial base is tourism. Without it, they go broke. Guess what’s going on. I proposed that Cancun hook-up with Colorado Springs through the Chamber of Commerce and become a “sister city”. That idea was fully embraced. I’m now working with Ms. Abundis on a proposal for greatly discounted travel by Colorado Springs residents. Here’s the report: the city’s safe; there’s no evidence of swine flue; just blue sky, warm days, warm water, white-sand beaches and too much tequila.

Have a good week.

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

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