Ann Arbor Housing Statistics and Google…Huh?

Well, if you reside anywhere near the City of Ann Arbor, or Southeastern Michigan for that matter, you’ve heard two things recently: the housing market is slow [article] and Google is coming to town [article].

So what can all this mean to the Ann Arbor area?

Traditionally, the Ann Arbor Area Housing Market [most recent quarterly statistics] has been relatively insulated from what ailes the rest of the region. With the University of Michigan, Pfizer and other research firms in the area, housing churn has been pretty decent.

Google and Real Estate

Google coming to town, well, that creates a bunch of buzz when it comes to real estate. One source of speculation is where the Googleplex will be located. While the Ann Arbor Market, as a whole, is flush with vacant office space, nearly 1.5 million square feet according to Swisher Commercial, downtown Ann Arbor has a total of 221,000 sf currently vacant. And about 200,000 sf is the amount I am hearing being bandied about to satisfy Google’s space requirements.

Again, so what?

Google is bringing 1,000 jobs to this area and will likely generate another 1,200 jobs to support their employees. They also are looking for space that is yet to exist in Ann Arbor. So, something will need to be built to accomodate Google’s space requirements and their employees will need to find a home or buy a larger home.

Makes this look entirerly prescient….in retrospect!

Technorati Tags: Michigan Real Estate, Google, Housing, Statistics, Commercial Real Estate