SBA-backed deals are propping up commercial real estate market
Small businesses are starting to look like the heroes in the commercial real estate market’s turnaround tale.
Businesses buying property for their own use, also known as owner-users, have fueled a number of deals in the Tri-Counties recently, many of them aided by financing through U.S. Small Business Administration lending programs.
In Oxnard, Industrial Park Associates has brokered five transactions totaling more than $10 million in the past six months. All five went to owner-users: A machine shop, an electrical contractor, an electric supply company, a general engineering contractor and a hydraulic equipment distributor — “All industries that you would not expect to be expanding in this current economic environment,” Industrial Park Associates Vice-President Mike Wax said in an e-mail interview. “I think some of this counter-intuitiveness can be explained by the opportunity to take advantage of the reduced market prices and desirable properties becoming available.”
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