Displaying items tagged: Midwest Realty Group LLC

PORTAGE — The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a series of changes that could fundamentally shift the commercial real estate market in the months ahead. 

After a day filled with showing commercial space to a potential client, Bryan Bench felt like his professional life had briefly returned to what it was before the disruption that came with the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The Great Recession might be years in the past, but commercial real estate executives haven’t forgotten the lessons learned from that time. Rick DeKam, principal with Midwest Realty Group, a Portage-based full-service real estate firm, has spent the last several years building up the company’s cash reserves to prepare for an eventual downturn. But beyond external factors such as “national and global issues related to the country’s presidency and the fact that our county continues to become more and more divided,” he believes the overall business climate continues to look positive.

When Siliconature Corp. examined potential sites in West Michigan for its North American headquarters, the company knew finding an existing building that fit its specific needs would be challenging.

Neither the uncertainty of a new presidential administration nor possible interest rate hikes act as a deterrent for development, according to Rick DeKam. “It would take a much larger multiple percentage point increase to dramatically slow our economy, which is not in the Fed’s best interests,” said DeKam, the principal at Portage-based Midwest Realty Group LLC. He believes it’s “smooth sailing” heading into 2017, particularly because of low inventory across commercial real estate sectors in West Michigan and continued high demand.