March 2017 Business Creation Index

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The new Business Creation Index (BCI) was created to monitor local economic conditions from the perspective of NAR’s commercial members. The report offers insight from commercial real estate professionals into whether businesses are opening or closing by industry, population density, and subregion. It tracks three key questions related to local market conditions from one month to the next: 

1. An increase of businesses opening in local communities in the last 30 days
2. An increase of businesses closing in local communities in the last 30 days
3. Net businesses opening and closing in local communities in the last 30 days.

Highlights

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they had seen an increase in businesses opening in March 2017.

• Sixty-three percent of members in the East South Central subregion saw businesses opening in the last three months, followed by Middle Atlantic (57 percent), South Atlantic and West North Central (56 percent), and West South Central (52 percent).
• Sixty-five percent of respondents said they had not seen an increase in businesses closing in March 2017.