Real estate slump isn’t over, exec says
Cushman is wary of commercial debt
By Roger Showley
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may think the recession is over, but the head of the nation’s largest real estate services firm says the slump has two or three years to go in his industry.
John C. Cushman III, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, told an audience at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate yesterday that the commercial real estate industry faces $5 trillion in mortgage refinancing problems over the next decade. Improved leasing, sales and construction conditions are unlikely until 2011 or 2012, he said.
“You have to make a very clear distinction between the general economy and commercial real estate,” Cushman said in a wide-ranging chat, moderated by his San Diego managing director, Stath J. Karras.