Office Information

Managing Director:

Rand Stephens

  • 4400 Post Oak Parkway
  • Suite 1500
  • Houston, TX 77027
  • United States
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  • Phone: 713.993.7700
  • Fax: 713.993.7701

Avison Young in Houston

Avison Young’s Houston office was established in June 2010 by two industry veterans and continues to expand rapidly through the addition of well-respected and positioned professionals. The Houston office is well suited for energy-related partnerships with the company’s Alberta operations (Calgary and Edmonton), and continues to establish bonds with Avison Young’s offices throughout the U.S. and Canada.

For businesses looking for commercial real estate solutions, Avison Young specializes in providing best-in-class real estate services throughout the greater Houston area. Avison Young is one of Houston’s leading providers of integrated commercial real estate services. Our organization, among the largest in the region, is team-driven and client-focused. Our Houston team includes senior professionals with substantial bench strength in brokerage, research and marketing, offering a level of service unparalleled in Houston. In addition, we have one of the top research departments in Houston, offering quarterly insights into local and regional commercial real estate activities. The depth of our market knowledge assures that we capture and capitalize on the trends impacting our clients and their real estate needs.

Area Overview

Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S. by population and the ninth largest U.S. city by land area. Houston is home to 24 Fortune 500 companies and over 3 million workers. Houston is the U.S. energy headquarters, home of the nation’s largest port, based on foreign tonnage, and home of the world’s largest medical center.

Markets

OFFICE

Houston is recognized worldwide because of its energy sector, particularly oil and natural gas, and is considered by many experts to be the energy capital of the world. Five of the six non- state-owned energy companies maintain a base of operations in Houston, including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon-Mobil, Shell Oil (U.S. subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) and BP.

Additionally, more than 5,000 energy-related firms consider Houston home, including headquarter locations for energy-related companies such as the Marathon Oil Corporation, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Apache Corporation and Citgo. To quantify, Houston’s office market currently totals approximately 240 million square feet, with approximately one-third of this product situated in the Central Business District and Galleria/West Loop submarkets. In addition to these two submarkets, many energy-related companies call the Energy Corridor submarket their home.

RETAIL

The retail sector has started to turn the corner from the fallout witnessed between 2008 and 2010 despite sluggish job growth and low consumer spending levels. Compared with the retail boom in the early 2000s, the revival is modest, but has allowed the market to begin absorbing over-built space and, correspondingly, helped reduce vacancy levels and resulted in many major retailers planning future expansion. To further assist the turnaround, restaurant leasing remains strong, increasingly expanding anchor positions in many retail centers.

INDUSTRIAL

Thanks to its broad diversity, and a healthy market that continues to hold vacancy levels in the single digits, Houston’s industrial real estate sector encompasses approximately 475 million square feet of flex and office/warehouse inventory. That total includes more than 130 million square feet in the Northwest submarket, Houston’s primary distribution hub, which ranks regularly in the top five nationwide. In addition, roughly 80 million square feet directly services the Port of Houston, which regularly ranks first in the U.S. in international waterborne tonnage handled and second in total cargo tonnage handled.

INVESTMENT

Houston continues to be one of the most active investment markets in the United States, attracting more and more international capital. Stabilized core assets with long-term tenancy are trading at historically-high capitalization rates and are setting pricing records on a price-per-square-foot basis for the entire Southwest Texas Region. Investor types in the market today are from all categories including international and domestic REITs, pension funds and private capital. Strong investor interest will continue in the future due to Houston being regarded as the “job creation capital” of the United States.