By STEVE BROWN
The Dallas Morning News
sbrown@dallasnews.com
Commercial real estate executives from around the country meeting in Dallas this week may not agree about where the national economy is going or how long the current credit crunch will last.
But there is a consensus about how much better the North Texas property market and economy is doing than most of the rest of the nation.
“This is one of the few areas of the country experiencing an economic boom rather than a bust,” Todd Mansfield, chairman of the Urban Land Institute said at the organization’s opening gathering Thursday afternoon. “For most of us outside this area, the immediate outlook is not as bright.”
Almost 3,000 commercial real estate developers, brokers, investors, lenders and planners are here for the ULI’s spring meeting.
The tight mortgage markets and sagging economy are their chief concern.
“No one knows how long this will last – whether it will stretch over a few months or years,” Mr. Mansfield said.
The high employment growth in Dallas-Fort Worth and the forest of construction cranes in the center of the city have provided welcome for an industry that is suffering in other parts of the nation.
“The key thing is job growth – Texas is very fortunate and Dallas particularly fortunate in having a strong job market,” said Gadi Kaufmann, CEO of Maryland-based real estate adviser Robert Charles Lesser & Co. “But this is one of the few bright spots today.”
While Texas cities have so far dodged the worst of the housing slump and employment losses, many other U.S. cities have already seen significant cutbacks.
Economist David Greenlaw with Morgan Stanley predicts that the tax rebate checks being mailed out now to consumers will provide a short-term stimulus to the U.S. economy. But he predicts that conditions will then worsen a bit late in the year.
“We think you are going to actually see something like a W pattern for the economy,” Mr. Greenlaw told ULI members.
He’s looking for a more sustainable recovery sometime in 2009, but even that is questionable.
“We are assuming that gasoline prices come down - that's a very questionable assumption,” Mr. Greenlaw said. “It also assumes that house prices stabilize some time early next year.”
The last time the ULI held a big meeting in Dallas was in 1990 during the depths of the last big regional real estate crash. Not much was being built.
On this trip members of the organization will get the chance to tour major projects under construction around the city including Uptown’s Victory project, the big Park Lane development on North Central Expressway and new projects in downtown’s Arts District.
The meeting runs through Friday.