The research company offered an in-depth view of the market, saying that of the available 45.7 million square-feet of retail space local retail properties closed the year with a 12.8% citywide vacancy rate. This percentage is unchanged compared to the third quarter and slightly down from the 13% recorded at the end of 2010.

This, however, shows a stability on the market. In addition, asking rental rates have gone up two cents over during the last quarter of 2011 and 24 cents compared with the previous year at this time to reach $18.19 per square-feet per year on a triple net basis — a year-over-year gain of 1.3%.

The biggest positive absorption was recorded by community centers, with 164,468 square-feet of net gain. Community centers ended the year with a citywide vacancy rate of 11.5%, up 1% compared to a year ago.

NAI REOC Senior Vice President Brian D. Harris said he expects the city’s stable economy to support retail growth this year, but “most retailers will likely take a cautious approach; discount retailers and grocery stores will continue to dominate expansion.”

The recently purchased properties belonged to Medistar Corp., a Houston-based company. The first building accounts for more than 57,000 square-feet of space amd houses in the New Christus Santa Rosa Hospital-Alamo Heights inpatient facility, while the second one, adjacent to the first is a 53,379-sf medical office building housing Christus Santa Rosa’s Physicians Ambulatory Surgery Center and Imaging Center-

Both purchases and the campus that hosts them are part of the Christus Santa Rosa Health Care system, which can be found on US Highway 281, near the Alamo Quarry Market.

As Don Dunbar, executive vice president of Duke Realty said in a press release following the acquisition of the two properties, the move is part of the company’s strategy to increase its investment in high-quality, on-campus care assets supported by strong heath care systems.

San Antonio Board of Realtors reportedly used “consistent”, unwavering”, “firm” and “showing permanence” in their report describing the housing market of the above mentioned area.

Furthermore, SABOR stated that the total number of sales for 2011 hit 17,914 single-family home sales in the greater San Antonio area, which is unchanged compared to a year prior.

The average price paid for a single-family home also remained unchanged, as it stood at $185,516 at year end of 2011.

The median saw a slight 1% increase compared to 2010, which is also a positive sign for the area’s housing market as it stands currently at $152,000.

What the SABOR report emphasizes is that there were no tax incentives in 2011, but still the area’s housing market proved stability with the average price paid for a single-family home remaining unchanged.

Based on last year’s performance, SABOR Chair Liza Reyes shows herself confident in a better 2012, because San Antonio’s housing market supported by the economy.

At the time, more than 19,000 home starts were recorded, but as the housing bubble bust, builders faced hash times, and some of them even closed its doors.

Jack Inselmann, vice president of the US Central Division of the housing research firm Metrostudy said during the annual forecast breakfast at the Omni San Antonio Hotel, that the recovery has started last year, with foreclosure filings trending downwards and a 2% improvement in building starts.

The numbers Inselmann highlighted in his speech is 6,843, the number of new home starts.

The resale market still has room for improvement. It has a 7.2-month inventory of homes for sale and needs to come down closer to the equilibrium mark of around six months, Inselmann said.

One thing is sure, the key ingredient for the housing market – jobs – has a bright outlook, although there won’t be any dramatic growth either. James Gaines, research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University said in his speech at the SABOR annual forecast that he and they don’t expect any great boom, “but it beats the heck out of going down.”

What the numbers published by SABOR say is the median price reached $152,000, a higher level than in 2007, before the housing collapse, and it grew $200 compared to the 2010 median, which was $149,800. The number of home sales from January to November was identical to 2010: 16,516 while SABOR recorded 16,515 home sale transactions in 2010.

What Wilson Canwell of Keller Williams Realty highlighted in his speech was that the number of homes converted into rentals should rise by about 5% in 2012.

While October gave signs of winter winter approaching – in home sale transactions –, November home sale transactions dipped another 2%. SABOR has recorded only 1,239 home sales recorded during November.

According to Angela Shields, President and CEO of SABOR, this dip is typical during the winter period.

Winter also affects the housing prices in the San Antonio area. Home prices also declined 8% as the average sale price of a property in the area stood at $174,861.

The median price of a home currently stands at $145,000 — a five percent decrease from last November’s figure.

“This month, we saw a sales decrease for homes priced between $200,000 and $500,000 — as well as homes priced above the half-million-dollar mark,” says 2011 SABOR Chairman Scott Caballero. “The change could account for the month-to-month decline,” the San Antonio Business Journal cites.

The Sheppard Centre deal was completed on December 1,when the real estate located at the northeast corner of Yonge and Sheppard was sold to the joint venture. The building is a 673,000 square-feet urban mixed use centre that contains retail, offices and residential uses, Marketwatch noted.

The purchase price paid by the joint venture of KingSett Capital and RioCan was $218 million. According to Marketwatch the property will be managed by RioCan, as it will act as leasing manager and will be the development manager in connection with any redevelopment of the recently purchased building.

“The downtown San Antonio office market experienced a big win in the third quarter,” says Kim Gatley, senior VP and director of research for NAI REOC San Antonio.

During this three month period some major transactions closed such as HVHC Inc. leased 112,652 square-feet and Argo Group US Inc. leased 77,000 square-feet at the IBC Centre I &II complex, which resulted in 265,035 square-feet of positive absorption.

However, this happened at the expense of the suburban market, which is struggling with more than 99,000 square-feet of negative absorption this quarter.

Citywide, there is 165,530 square feet of positive absorption in the third quarter, but the year-to-date total sits at 129,871 square feet of negative net absorption. Vacancy, however, remained relatively stable at 19.9 percent.

“Even as we celebrate the sizeable leases signed at the IBC Centre complex this quarter, the downtown market continues to face the challenge of additional vacancy,” says Gatley. “The return of these large blocks of space will keep downward pressure on rental rates and deter developers from starting any new large-scale speculative projects over the next year or better.”

“San Antonio is the third-fastest growing area by population in the U.S.,” notes Edward Kalikow, president and CEO of The Kalikow Group. “Homes are reasonably priced and job growth is expanding. This all equals increased demand for single-family homes, and we are executing a successful business model in a sound market,” the San Antonio Business Journal cites.

The joint venture first presented its development plan two years ago. They slated up a huge 610 acre land along Loop 1604 and US Highway 90; of that the residential development sits on 539 acres, hosting a total of 2,400 single-family homes, while the remaining 71 acres are for commercial development.

Last year, LGI Homes, a Houston-based company and GTIS Partners, a real estate investment company purchased 93 acres out of the residential portion, making the 50 homes and the other 16 homes under contract LGI’s portion of the Ranch.

Even James Gaines, research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, believes the worse is over, pointing to the numbers. And the number say that lenders moved to foreclose on just more than 15,000 Bexar County properties during the first 10 months of 2011. James Gaines commented that foreclosure levels won’t be so high in the upcoming period, because many of the questionable loans made during the housing boom has already gone bad.

“The good news is that the foreclosures are down. The economy in San Antonio has picked up. People aren’t losing their jobs, and that’s the No. 1 cause of foreclosures in the first place,” he said. “It looks like we have gotten through most of the issues of really bad or marginal loans going bad in Texas. Those have been cleared.”