Office broker Chuck Goldstein of Goldstein Cresa offers a contrarian view, however. He said the Houston office market will start off with a lackluster performance, partly because the national economy is weakening. Century Development is expected to begin construction on a long-anticipated downtown office tower on Main Street. And a big office tower will be started in Greenway Plaza for Aim Management. It was the most since the 33,000 home starts in 1983.
More success appears in the cards.
Next year should be as strong as 2000 because of low mortgage interest rates and projected strong job growth, said Pamela Minich, vice president of CDS Research. Rates for 30-year mortgages recently dipped below 7 percent. Additional rate cuts are expected in 2001, and that should make home buying even more attractive. In the Inner Loop, high-rise residential towers are a hot item. Some observers expect that some of the high-rises that have been announced won't be built because of lack of financing or slow preconstruction sales.