Valley’s CRE brokerage execs upbeat for key market segments in 2025
Western Retail Advisors Founding Partner Eric Termansen recently answered some questions for the Phoenix Business Journal as part of it’s annual annual Commercial Real Estate Brokerages list.
As PBJ Research Director Dale Brown notes, CRE brokerages, “have been asked to do magic of late, such as putting together solid sales and lease deals when industry segments have been neither consistent or predictable.”
Here are a few of Eric’s replies. You can read the full story at the Business Journal here.
What will be strong, what will be weak?
The first question was, “What kinds of CRE products do you expect to perform the best in 2025? What CRE products will be the most difficult for brokerages to fill?”
“Retail will by far and away be the shining star of 2025. It has been underbuilt as a metro Phoenix asset class since 2008, and with about 1 million new residents added to the Valley during that time, retail is being driven by consumer demand, resulting in tenant demand, not speculative development. Class B and C office will continue to struggle. The same is true for many malls. Only quality regional malls like Scottsdale Fashion Square will survive in their current form. With the continued decline of department stores, all other regional malls will need to transform and transition to other uses including industrial, multifamily, residential, office and entertainment. Depending on the location, this could be extremely difficult for some assets.”
– Termansen
How will AI change the industry?
And one of our final questions was, “How much is AI affecting the day-to-day business of a commercial real estate brokerage, and what are your thoughts on its future?”
“While the adoption of AI within the brokerage community is still in the early stages, it’s clear that the potential exists for much more substantial impact. Current applications are assisting with creating marketing copy or building prospecting lists. With the continually expanding applications for graphics and video, those who are on the lookout for use cases will also find more and more ways to leverage their time.”
– Termansen
