Dallas Apartments: Renting Now, Buying Later in Dallas

Property sales in North Texas have slowed to a trickle because of the lack of credit and worries about the economy.

We are all hoping there is a lot of pent-up capital on the sidelines that wants to get back into real estate, said Jack Fraker, a top investment broker with CB Richard Ellis. Fraker said his property sales were off 65 percent or more in 2008.

At the same time, property values have fallen.

There is still a disconnect between the sellers and the buyers, he said. Hopefully that will change later this year.

Most of the institutional investors have tried to avoid writing down their real estate values, Fraker said. They cant hide from that for long.

The rents that investors can get from Dallas office buildings are already falling, said CB Richard Ellis Phil Puckett. I see some landlords trying to hang onto what was, Puckett said.

While overall office vacancies in North Texas are at about 20 percent, they wont stay there, he said.

Its going to go up, Puckett said. The question is how much space are we going to get back from company closings?