NAI Carolantic Realty held its annual real estate conference in Raleigh, NC this week. The president of NAI Carolantic addressed attendees with a positive outlook on the next five years. Mr. Barnes believes that all going well, the market should hold strong through 2019. He does warn of a potential blip in the market in 2020 and asked the crowd of real estate professionals to be mindful of that. He also suggested that now is a good time to sell income-earning properties and take advantage of the current interest rates.

NAI Global’s Economist, Peter Linneman cautioned the attendees against an over confidence in the high price apartments trend we are seeing. He warned that with over 7,000 additional apartments due to enter the market in both 2015 and again in 2016, that apartment vacancies are expected to increase. He believes that millennials will start to buck the trend and instead opt to buy their own property instead of paying thousands each month to rent.

Barnes and Linneman also agreed that open-plan offices might be on the way out, with employees appreciating a private office more than other perks currently being offered. Now that the economy is picking back up and the jobs market is following, there is due to be higher competition for good workers, and offering a private office might just be the tipping point.

NAI Carolantic is a member company of NAI Global, a worldwide network of independently owned real estate firms. The company manages the network and supports the collaboration between member companies. It is owned by C-III Capital Partners, LLC and was acquired under the direction of their CEO Andrew Farkas in 2012.