How has the economic downturn and financial fallout impacted the commercial real estate industry in New Jersey?
Joseph Sarno (office – central New Jersey): If you look at what has gone on in 2008 as compared to where we were at this point last year, overall vacancy rates have gone up moderately, from 16.4 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2007 to 17.8 percent today. Leasing is down as well – 6.8 million square feet so far this year as compared to 7.6 million square feet one year ago. Yet add to that the fact that Class A rents have held steady, registering at $30.09 per square foot at the end of September, and our position is not as bad as it could be. Robert Rudin (office – northern New Jersey): As an industry, we are waiting for the impact of the disruption in our financial services sector, but to date the majority of that fallout has yet to be felt. In fact, of the 2,200 jobs lost in August, the majority of those jobs were lost in government. Specifically, there were 1,700 jobs lost in the New Jersey State government, largely in response to an early retirement deadline of Aug 1, 2008
