Hot Real Estate Market Said Keeping Vacancy Rates Low

Ventura County’s hot residential and commercial real estate markets are keeping available homes and office space scarce and prices high.

While vacancies were up in most of the county for the third quarter of 1999, the rates are still at near lows for the decade, despite more commercial building than at any time since 1986.

At a quarterly real estate conference Thursday sponsored by Chicago Title Co. and the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project, analysts detailed the market dynamics that are keeping real estate buoyant and suggested that, barring calamity, the housing and commercial real estate markets aren’t likely to cool significantly soon.

“The housing market is still hot. There’s no weakness in commercial real estate,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the forecast project. “What the community needs is office space to match all the job creation.”

Residences for sale continue to move off the market nearly as fast as they arrive. The upcoming holiday season looks to be the most frenetic in economic history, Schniepp said.

While there was an uptick in vacancies, Schniepp credited that to the ebb and flow of businesses moving up to larger offices.

Office vacancies were tightest in the eastern county, with 10.2% in Thousand Oaks and an all-time low of 6.0% in Simi Valley. Rates around 12% are considered healthy.

The county’s industrial vacancy rate edged up to about 10%, but analysts expected the rate to decline again during the next six months.

Retail vacancies were 5.7%, the lowest rate since 1992.