Utah Co. CRE market update - Stan Craft

I organized a Utah County commercial real estate forum for the Utah County Assoc. of Realtors that was held yesterday. We had excellent presentations by Stan Craft, commercial appraiser with Free & Associates, and Ray Walker with CBRE Debt & Equity Finance. Here is Stan's contact information:

Stan Craft, MBA, MAI
Vice President, Free and Associates
313 So 740 East, Ste 1
American Fork, UT 84003
O: 801-492-0000
F: 801-492-1000
C: 801-360-1198
stanc [at] freeandassociates.com


Following are my notes from Stan's presentation. Here is a link to his slides.

Volume in numbers of appraisals is pretty even between 2008 to 2009
• new construction appraisals have gone down significantly
• fewer appraisals related to sales
• more banks wanting updated values
• more tax appeals
• more foreclosures (FDIC)
Updated valuations from previous year (from 2008 to 2009)
• 27 total
• 5 have gone up in value
• 22 have gone down in value
• Average 10% drop in value
What’s affecting appraised values
• Sales comps
• Lease rates
• Vacancies
• Concessions
• Cap rates
Cap rates for office properties
• 1st half 2008 – 7.56%
• 2nd half 2008 – 7.62%
• 1st half 2009 – 7.99%
• 2nd half 2009 – 8.44%
Office rent rates (100 Utah properties, about 40% in Utah County)
• 2q08 - $15.22
• 4q09 - $15.09
• 2q09 - $15.90
• 4q09 - $13.64

Residential market (Roland Robinson)
Affordable housing in good areas (under $250k, near I-15)

Lindon exit office space having strong lease rates

Land - $10-12/ft in the past, dropping to $7-8/ft recently