Commercial Investment Real Estate Spring 2020 | Page 37

By Bradley Gordon, CCIM
THE PEOPLE
IN YOUR
NEIGHBORHOOD
The growth of community banks has lagged since the Great Recession.
What impact does this have on commercial real estate?
M
ark Twain is credited with the saying, “History doesn’t repeat
itself, but it does rhyme” — though there’s no concrete evidence
he came up with it. Regardless, this aphorism holds true when
it’s applied to economic and business cycles. As the commercial real
estate community has learned time and again, understanding the
market’s position in a given cycle is critically important. The availability
of funds, which relies on economic forecasts, powers real estate activity
— and a hefty chunk of these funds comes from community banks as
loans and mortgages.
The United States is currently enjoying its longest economic
expansion in history. This growth, which began in June 2009 according
to the National Bureau of Economic Research, has shattered the previous