Another early indicator of a recovery in Seattle’s commercial real estate market

Providing an early indicator of a nascent recovery in commercial real estate, the number of environmental site assessments in Seattle was up 23 percent to 642 in the third quarter from the year before, more than double the 10.4 percent increase for western states as a whole, according to Environmental Data Resources Inc., a recognized industry market monitor and information services firm.

Meanwhile an Urban Land Institute report based on surveys of 950 real estate professionals, ranked Seattle as the sixth strongest commercial real estate market. The top five were Washington, D.C., Austin, San Francisco, New York and Boston.

The site assessments information is interesting because suchy assessments are typically required before any commercial real estate transaction occurs in which a lender is involved. The site assessments are usually done about three months before closing. The assessments are evidence of a great willingness among investors to buy real estate and bankers to make loans.

Here’s more from a press release put out by El Segundo, Calif.-based Partner Engineering and Science:

Phase I Assessments should be considered a leading indicator of real estate transactions, and of general real estate market conditions, said Joseph P. Derhake, PE President of Partner Engineering and Science, Inc., a national environmental and engineering consulting firm.

The 13 states of the West included in the statistics are California, Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. In all, there were 11,969 Phase I ESAs performed in the third quarter in the West, signaling many active and pending deals. Nationally, 48,826 ESA’s were conducted in the third quarter, an increase of seven percent from 3Q 2010.

More than half of the ESAs took place in California (6,578) which also led the country in regional transaction growth with an18 percent year-over-year increase. San Francisco was the third-highest growth metro in US Phase I’s, at 44 percent. Los Angeles (up 31 percent), San Diego (up 23 percent) and Seattle (23 percent) were all among the top 10 cities with the highest transaction volume in the U.S. in the latest quarter. Austin, Texas, led all cities nationally with a 52 percent increase in ESAs year over year.