Retailers this year prepared themselves for the worse and adapted new sales strategies in order to combat the anticipated sluggish sales. You may have visited a Target, Walmart, or Kohl’s this late October or early November and noticed Christmas decorations up. That was not a mistake, that was a tactic retailers used this year to blur the line between seasons; it was a way of extending the shopping season.

In the retail world, a rule-of-thumb is to never promote Christmas merchandise and decorations prior to Thanksgiving, yet this year that rule was broken; Hallo-Thanks-Christmas. That is what we got this year. In an effort to motivate consumers to dig in their pockets and purchase items, retailers decide to start promoting Chrsitmas early this year. Retailers quickly adapted and prepared for a recession.

With slowing sales and a recession at hand, the retail and office sector of commercial real estate is not looking as promising as before. In the end, I may be biased, but I always find comfort in the multi-family sector; its the most basic human necessity: shelter.