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Will Washington ruin Christmas?
The National Retail Federation showed its Christmas spirit on Thursday by releasing a holiday forecast that calls for sales to increase 3.9% to $602 billion and assumes the President and Congress will be able to resolve their differences.
NRF’s forecasted growth rate of 3.9% is a solid figure and well above the 3.3% average growth rate of the past 10 years and ahead of last year’s 3.5% gain. In addition, the trade group’s Shop.org digital division forecast that online sales would grow between 13% and 15% to roughly $82 billion.
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Re-Inventing Power Centers
Across America, big-box centers are powering back up
Power centers have proven themselves to be a resilient asset class in recent years. First the recession cut into business. Then e-commerce leveled some of their big-box tenants, hurt others and ignited a downsizing trend.
Yet research from Washington, D.C.-based CoStar Group shows that only 2% of power centers have vacancy rates of 40% or higher and probably won’t recover. Another 6% have vacancy rates of 20% to 40% and are in serious condition but may recover.