CCIM, which stands for Certified Commercial Investment Member, is a designation requiring more than 200 hours of classroom training and other professional experiential requirements. There are more than 9,000 CCIMs in the U.S. (I earned the designation this past fall).
Each quarter, the CCIM Institute teams with the Real Estate Research Council (RERC) to survey the CCIM membership. The two organizations use the information to create the RERC/CCIM Investment Trends Quarterly, which features statistics regarding the economy, investments and commercial real estate investment trends.
In the latest edition, CCIM members increased their performance and return ratings for commercial real estate and continued to give commercial real estate a higher investment rating than stocks, bonds or cash.
Respondents remained cautious, however, by giving a “hold” recommendation the highest rating (6.6) when compared to “buy” (6.4) and “sell” (5.8). Those numbers are on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the highest.
Investors continue to believe that the return for commercial real estate outweighs the risk, with the apartment sector scoring the highest at 7.1 in the fourth quarter of 2011.
CCIM members noted that the value of commercial real estate in general is higher than its price, and increased their overall value versus price rating to 5.7 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being high, during fourth quarter 2011.
The industrial sector received the highest value versus price rating, with a slightly improved score of 5.6 during fourth quarter.
Make no mistake, by reporting these trends I am not advocating that you “drop everything” and invest your life savings in commercial real estate. This report simply states that “CCIM members seem to be slightly more optimistic as they look to the future” despite the very real headwinds the economy still faces.
In which sector of commercial real estate would you be most inclined to invest: retail, industrial, office, apartment or hospitality? Why?