Deals
Office Prices in Subprime’s Center Leapfrog Recovery in Region
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Investors are bidding up prices for top-tier office buildings in Orange County, California, even as vacancies stand at almost 20 percent after the collapse of the subprime-mortgage industry that once made the region its home.
Prices paid for offices in the area climbed 63 percent to $111 a square foot in the second quarter from recession lows of $68 in 2009, according to preliminary figures from Real Capital Analytics Inc. An 11-story building near John Wayne Airport is on the market at $225 a square foot, up 80 percent from the $125 it fetched two years ago, said Greg May, a managing director at brokerage Grubb & Ellis Co. in Newport Beach, California.