Oregon Public Broadcasting

It’s not just residential real estate that’s suffering during this recession. As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, owners of offices, shops and other commercial real estate, are also seeing high vacancy rates. 

Oregon’s record unemployment rate is emptying offices around the state. Tony Cassie manages the Portland office of real estate investment firm Marcus & Millichap.

Tony Cassie: “In terms of office vacancy across the Portland metro area, we’re running anywhere from 10 percent on the Eastside all the way up to 21 percent in the Vancouver area.” 

Cassie says add to that the fact that developers adding another 400,000 square feet of office space this year, and what you get is dropping rental rates. 

This year, he says, rents are expected to fall about four percent -- to levels last seen in 2007. But owners are also likely to offer concessions, so they can fill vacancies in their buildings. 

That’s also expected to push rates down from about $21 a square foot to $16.