CB Commercial predicts ivestment growth this year.

Jeffrey Dunne, senior vice president, of CB Commercial Real Estate Group, Inc., who completed in excess of $130 million worth of office sale transactions across the New York Metropolitan area in 1996, predicts that the demand for quality suburban office buildings will continue to grow among investors throughout the region.

"Investors are buying at lower initial yields and betting on higher future rents," said Dunne. Several recent transactions demonstrate this trend, including the sale of Parsippany Commerce Center in New Jersey to AMRESCO Advisors at a 8.1 percent initial yield on 90 percent occupancy, and the sale of Landmark Square in Stamford, CT to the Reckson REIT at a sub 7 percent initial yield on 87 percent occupancy. "As rent spikes are realized, however," Dunne said, "we expect investors to shift back to securing higher initial yields."

Dunne, a leading producer for CB Commercial, was recently recognized as the number one CB Commercial producer in all of Connecticut, an honor he has received for the fifth time in the past six years. Dunne was also ranked among CB Commercial's top ten investment brokers in the nation for the 1996 calendar year.

Some of Dunne's significant transactions in 1996 included: the $25 million sale 1145 19th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. on behalf of Associations Building Limited Partnership to Health and Retirement Properties Trust; the sale of Parsippany Commerce Center In Parsippany, NJ to AMRESCO Advisors Inc. for $15 million on behalf of GE Investments; the sale of five office properties located at the Griffin Office Center in Windsor, CT for $15 million on behalf of Pooled Real Estate Investment Fund and Culbro Land Resources; and the sale of Raintree Apartments in Lexington, Kentucky for $17 million to GE Investments. Dunne also represented Summer Street Joint Venture, a venture between Prudential Insurance and Fisher Brothers, in the sale of 1111 and 1177 Summer Street in Stamford, CT, valued at $8 million.

Since the beginning of 1997, Dunne has closed two sale transactions in Connecticut. He was the sole broker in representing K & R Realty in the sale of Perry Plaza, a retail strip center in Norwalk, CT; and Dunne worked with Randy Koladis, first vice president of CB Commercial's Hartford, CT office in representing the seller of Hartford Square North, a 254,736 square-foot high-rise office property located on Columbus Boulevard in Hartford, CT. That sale yielded a going-in return of only 6 percent to the buyer, making it one of the most aggressive commercial real estate sale transactions in Hartford in recent years.