According to Fred Schmidt, the COO and President of Coldwell Banker Commercial Worldwide, major shifts in how we do business will shape a new commercial real estate market in 2015.

The 3 major shifts we can expect to see are:

• Investors will be increasingly attracted to commercial real estate as vacancy rates in multifamily units continue to remain low. Multifamily units are experiencing the lowest vacancy since 2001.
• Higher employment demand in cities and demand for smaller office spaces. Tenants are looking for less square feet per employee to achieve increase productivity and profitability.
• Millennials will increasingly shape the real estate market as the Baby Boomer generation starts to retire.
• In industrial real estate specifically, businesses are becoming more decentralized and focusing more on e-commerce. In turn, their locations are for order fulfillment and increasingly need rail use.

The positive factors that will lead market growth are:

• GDP growth
• Low interest rates
• Increasing sales and leasing
• Positive employment
• Energy self-sufficiency

The negative growth factors for 2015 are:

• Structural unemployment
• State and local debt
• Event risk: wars and political unrest
• Interest rates may rise