REAL ESTATE: Experts eye the progress of recovery

Users considering signing up for a lease on industrial space in inland Southern California should expect to pay a little more this year, according to a forecast released recently by The Salazar Group, an Orange County commercial real estate brokerage that specializes in representing tenants.

But that should not deter people looking for leases, according to a statement. The overall picture is that it appears to be a promising year for both tenants and property owners. The vacancy rate for industrial properties in San Bernardino and Riverside counties declined last year and closed the year at 6.9 percent, down from 7.5 percent in the previous year.

The Salazar Group, which has worked on up numerous deals in the Inland Empire, said its prediction is for the vacancy rates to remain flat in 2013.

Lease rates increased about 2.6 percent over the course of the last 12 months, and that should be a trend that will continue, somewhere in the 2 percent to 4 percent range. But interest rates should remain low, so expect to see some more activity in the area based on those metrics as users try to lock in those rates.

RIVERSIDE OFFICE COMPLEX SOLD

A 30-year-old office complex in Riverside’s Box Springs area has been purchased for about $10 million by a Los Angeles-based developer.

The property is 147,000 square feet of space at 2085 Rustin Ave. It is a two-story complex with lots of parking built in 1983, and it went through tenant renovations in 2000. AT&T occupies about two-thirds of the office space on the 14.5-acre site.

The seller was Century Park Partners.

APARTMENTS GAIN FINANCING

HFF, a mortgage banking firm with an office in Irvine, has announced it has helped to secure $40 million in financing for the Santa Barbara Apartments, a 192-unit community in Ranch Cucamonga. HFF worked on behalf of the borrower, Lewis Operating Corp., to secure a 15-year fixed-rate loan through Prudential Mortgage Capital Co.

The Inland-based Lewis operation has developed more than 56,000 homes in the area in the last half-century and has been prominent in constructing multifamily projects in the area in the last two years.

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