While recent figures from the LAEDC showed the fourth month in a row of year-over-year declines, the University of Southern California Casden Forecast predicted continued 8 percent to 10 percent growth in container traffic at the ports in its 2007 Southern California Office & Industrial Report. At least one voice in the commercial real estate industry, though, has said a weak dollar could help the industrial sector. Noting total U.S. exports were up 14 percent in 2007, the recently released Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast predicted a devalued dollar will help "bolster the region's industrial sector and help to maintain strong demand for leasing or buying industrial real estate in Southern California." Even though imports will decline, better export numbers will help U.S. corporate bottom lines, and that could fuel demand for real estate and help the industrial sector, according to Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Forecast at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate. "There is so much demand that even with the slowdown there still will be demand to fill industrial warehouse space," Conway said. "Industrial vacancy rates in L.A. County are at 1.8 percent. We still need a great deal of industrial space even with the slowed growth."
January 7, 2008