What I'm Reading Pulling the Ripcord: Looking back, the non-bank mortgage lenders rushing to sell shares to the public last year was probably the peak of the business cycle. Since then, borrowing costs have doubled, the market has slowed to a crawl and the buyers of those IPOs are left holding...
January 19th – In Limbo
What I'm Reading Not Out of the Woods: Trepp's overall CMBS delinquency rate increased for the first time in 18 months. The move was driven by issues in the office sector which is still facing work from home headwinds. Over the next five years, 42% of the full-term interest-only loans for office...
October 5th – Honey Badger
What I'm Reading Staying Remote: PriceWaterhouseCoopers is freeing the entirety of its U.S. workforce to work remotely full-time, a decision that will impact 40,000 client services workers. The Real Deal In response, the CMBS markets did their best honey badger impression. Will be interesting to watch this one play out: ...
September 8th – 800 LB Gorilla
What I'm Reading 800 LB Gorilla: Amazon is on pace to absorb nearly 120 million square feet of commercial space this year and accounts for eight of the ten largest industrial projects underway in the United States. The ecommerce giant is having a massive impact on everything from pricing and...
July 20th – Diverted
What I'm Reading Diverted: Money is pouring into real estate funds but investor strategies are different in the past. Historically, downtown office towers were prime targets for institutions, as the size of the assets allows them to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars at once. But now, the long-term stability...
June 7th – Not As It Seems
One Big Thing As you can see from the Chart of the Day Below, we are finally back to 1970 levels when it comes to housing production in the United States (h/t Taylor Grant). Hooray, I guess. While things are certainly better than they were a few years ago, this...
April 12th – The Great Invasion
What I'm Reading Invasion of the Nerds: Residents of Silicon Valley set their sights on Austin, Texas during the pandemic, making the city even more tech centric. The migration is also exporting Bay Area problems to Austin, resulting in a housing shortage that is threatening to price locals out, soaring...
March 16th – My Way or the Highway
What I'm Reading My Way or the Highway: The Kushner Companies declined to oppose its lenders’ bid to appoint a receiver to take control of a deeply distressed Times Square entertainment retail property that it purchased for $295.3MM back in 2015. The decline in value here is eye popping to...
February 9th – Hybrid Model
What I'm Reading Hybrid: Retail stores are increasingly adopting a hybrid model, whereby they accommodate both in-store shoppers and the fulfillment of e-commerce orders, creating a new asset class that sits somewhere between retail and distribution. This is likely to lead to major changes in the next few year. For...
January 22nd – Deluge
What I'm Reading Deluge: Office occupancy losses hit record lows in 2020, totaling 84MM square feet with more than half of the losses occurring in CBDs. Expensive markets with a high concentration of tech-and energy-companies were the most impacted. The only relative bright spots were secondary and tertiary markets, which...