Life Sciences Real Estate Outperforming Oth...( Occupancy ra...)

Occupancy rates and rents for spaces leased to biotech, pharma and medical devices tenants are faring better in some markets than office, retail and other property sectors.

Minneapolis, MN (Vocus) July 24, 2009 -- There’s no denying that the recession, the credit crunch, pharmaceuticals industry mergers and an overall slump in the commercial property market are having a negative impact on the life sciences real estate sector. In most markets, vacancies are up while absorption and net rental rates are down. But a Page 1 article in the most recent edition of Bioscience Real Estate Insights suggests that the life sciences niche still seems to be holding up better than most other commercial real estate sectors – particularly the “four main food groups” of office, industrial, retail and multifamily.

“There are even some pockets of surprisingly good news,” says Murray W. Wolf, publisher and founding editor of BREI. “Some bio clusters are reporting flat or even increased space absorption, with little or no increase in vacancy rates. And in some markets, like Greater Boston, vacancy rates for lab space have actually declined.”

BREI is a national, business-to-business newsletter that covers bioscience real estate, development financing and investment. BREI was launched in 2006 in recognition that there is a distinct sector of the commercial real estate market specializing in office, research and development (R&D), laboratory, manufacturing, and distribution space owned or leased by pharma, biotech and medical devices companies, as well as colleges, universities, hospitals and other biomedical research institutions.

In addition to the lead story on leasing, the current edition of BREI also incl
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