Haines chats with The Times of Trenton about the Mercer County Office Market

Aubrey Haines spoke with Brendan McGrath of The Times of Trenton about the Mercer County Commercial Real Estate market.

Despite the success of the building and the current strength of the market, local development of large commercial office buildings has been slow to pick up coming out of the recession. There has been little new construction of this type in the area other than the 300 Carnegie Center building, said Aubrey Haines, CEO at Mercer Oak Realty. And that slowness on the part of developers has contributed to a growing shortage of space.

“When you’re looking for smaller spaces you have a wide range of choices,” Haines said. “If you’re at 50,000 or 100,000 square feet, options are limited.”

While the recession pushed down demand for a few years, it also suppressed development.

“That creates more pent-up demand so when the market comes back they need a lot of space in a hurry,” Haines said. “There’s almost no new supply expected to come online.”

Demand is outpacing supply in the market, Haines said, but until rental rates for high quality office space increase it will be difficult to convince large banks to finance the development of new buildings. The suburban nature of the local market leads financiers to be hesitant to lend despite growing demand, he said.

You can read the full article here: Commercial market going strong, especially in Mercer County, real estate agents say on nj.com.