Risk & Business Magazine Hardenbergh Insurance Group Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 6

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
BY: JASON M. WOLF,
MANAGING PRINCIPAL,
WOLF COMMERCIAL REAL
ESTATE
Southern New Jersey
Commercial Real
Estate Update
T
he Southern New Jersey
office market is seeing a
few exciting development
projects and steady interest
in investment opportunities.
The office sector in Southern New
Jersey has exhibited overall strong
fundamentals, underpinned by increased
new investments from outside of
the Greater Philadelphia region and
6
economic inflows to support local
economic expansion. The US economy
continues to grow moderately and add
jobs, with the national unemployment
rate dropping to a sixteen-year low.
These conditions are helping to generate
demand that is reverberating throughout
the real estate sector, especially for office
space.
Office leasing activity has been on an
upswing in 2017. The overall tone is
positive, and vacancy rates have been
stable for the past few quarters, hovering
just above 10 percent. The second
quarter posted approximately 395,155
square feet of new leases and renewals.
This is a 24 percent increase in activity
from the first quarter and an incredible
58 percent increase compared to the
second quarter a year ago. New leases
represented approximately 43.4 percent