Douglas Brockhouse, SIOR attended the Spring SIOR World Conference held April 27th through May 2nd in San Diego, California.  Doug holds the position of President of the Minnesota (including both Dakotas) Chapter of SIOR.  All of the chapter presidents and vice presidents, a group known as COPS, held meetings on both Thursday and Friday of the conference to set various society policies.

The mood of the conference attendees, approximately 600 from all parts of the U.S. and several foreign countries, was positive.  The general feeling is that the economy is headed in a positive direction, but will take some time yet to improve.

For the remainder of 2009, the belief is that we will see business opportunities in sale/leasebacks, troubled property workouts and lease renewal/renegotiations.  The hot spot for the financial markets will be in multi-tenant industrial properties.  The financial markets are not enthusiastic about lending money for retail projects and are equally hesitant on any bulk land speculations.