Simply Normal; The Right Moves to Ride Out the Recession and Prepare for Recovery
Commercial Property Executive
By Dees Stribling
The "new normal" for commercial real estate is not so new anymore. The slump is simply normal now, and industry executives have adjusted their strategies so thoroughly that pre-2007 ways of doing things seem impossibly remote...
...Stan Ross, chairman of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California, recalls that while it took a while, "everyone in the industry eventually understood that it was going to be a long slog. In the early days of the slump, the immediate goal was survival, but more recently changes in management attitudes and practices have become more fundamental, reaching deep into organizations."
Change has come in overlapping waves, Ross added, and will continue to do so even as the economy and (someday) the commercial real estate industry recover. Such changes include restructuring basic business functions to promote efficiency; downsizing and its often-desired, not-always-realized cousin, rightsizing; inspiring the "surviving" employees to work in anticipation of better times ahead; and devoting scarce resources to keeping tenants happy...