In October, Shona Martinez joined CBRE as a senior associate, specializing in office landlord and tenant representation. Martinez has more than 14 years of combined experience working for commercial real estate and financial services companies in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Prior to joining CBRE, Martinez was a vice president at Colliers, where she completed more than 700,000 square feet of lease transactions and property sales in New Mexico.
Albuquerque Business First talked with Martinez about commercial real estate in 2024.
Albuquerque Business First: What is the biggest trend going into 2024 for industry or commercial real estate?
Shona Martinez: We specialize in office, and so what we’re seeing is tenants are moving into smaller footprints. That’s kind of the general trend across the country right now. However, there are tenants in the market that don’t want to give up their space, so we are also seeing a lot of shorter-term renewals. We see that more so in the class A type of space, whereas tenants are happier to vacate the B and C space. But the issue is that there’s a lack of inventory for the class A space and unfortunately, due to construction costs, it just doesn’t pan out to build a new class A building right now.
Do you think the real estate industry in New Mexico is in a better state compared to other markets? Because we’re a tertiary market, we don’t see the immediate impact of booms and crashes. We tend to feel that later on, so it’s much more of a steady market. Up until recently, we really haven’t seen much of an increase in costs. Now, we are seeing a bit of an increase due to a lack of inventory and an increase in expenses. After the pandemic, nothing costs the same.
Do you have any advice for brokers organizing deals in 2024? Patience. Everything is taking so much longer and you can’t give up hope. It’s good to be a generalist. Learn a specific entity within the industry. If I’m a company owner and I need office space, I want to look for a broker who specializes in office, not industrial or land.
Source: “CBRE broker says smaller footprints, shorter-term office renewals trends to watch in 2024“
