AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal) — While the housing and industrial markets slow down and office properties struggle with high occupancy, one real estate market remains somewhat of a bright spot — retail — though it’s beginning to hit some turbulence.
Occupancy in Austin’s retail real estate market has hovered around 97% for well over a year. The market is tight because for a long time there wasn’t enough inventory built, yet Austin continued to boom.
“We know that things are strange in real estate when we see a lot of office brokers and industrial brokers coming over and trying to work retail deals, and we’ve seen that over the last year, and that’s how we know we’re actually the hot asset class at the moment,” John Heffington, partner at Shop Companies, said…