Twin Cities commercial real estate market likely bottomed out during 2010, according to NorthMarq Real Estate Services’ annual Compass report issued Monday.

The report estimates there was 15.8 percent combined vacancy for all types of commercial office, industrial and retail properties at the end of 2010, down 0.5 percent from where it was at the end of 2009. It’s a big difference from 2008 to 2009, when overall vacancy jumped 3 percent.

Despite the results, NorthMarq reports that “fundamentals are still very weak across the office, industrial and retail leasing markets. Recent economic indicators such as the unemployment rate have not been overly encouraging, setting the stage for a slow rebound in 2011.”

The Twin Cities office market improved in the second half of 2010 for landlords, resulting in “modest, but encouraging” positive absorption of 202,000 square feet. Absorption is a change in the amount of total leased space from one point in time to another.

The vacancy rate for the office market was unchanged in the second half of the year at 19.9 percent, with four of the seven sub-markets in the Twin Cities maintaining vacancy rates over 20 percent.

Read the entire article at Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.

Read more: NorthMarq: Metro real estate demand bottoms out |

Minnesota Vikings-themed scratch-off lottery tickets have generated more than $12 million in total sales since being introduced last summer, becoming one of the most successful games in recent history for the Minnesota Lottery.
The Vikings game, which launched just before the team reported to training camp in August, were sold for $10 per ticket at lottery retailers throughout the state and at the Metrodome. The game featured a top prize of $200,000, and a second-chance drawing to win a

VIP season ticket package for four. Lottery players also could earn points to redeem for Vikings merchandise.

“Sales of our Vikings Scratch ticket have been nothing short of outstanding,” Minnesota Lottery Marketing Director John Mellein said in a statement.

Read more: State lottery hits jackpot with Vikes deal | Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

According to a report sited in the Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal, Minnesota finished the 3rd quarter in 25th place for foreclosures.

The figures they sited saw 9499 homes receiving foreclosure notices in that time frame. That comes out to one out of 245 homes. That is an increase from the previous quarter of about 5 1/2%.

But I guess if you are searching for some kind of good news to take away from the numbers – you can look at the 3rd quarter figures for ’09 – which were a little more than 10 1/2% higher.