One Big Thing The following is not tax advice. There are several things that we can say definitively about disgraced WeWork co-founder Adam Neuman. Here are a few: He is a massive self promoter He is generally full of shit. Like it or not, he is one of the great...
November 10 – In the Money
What I'm Reading Double Edged Sword: Long-underfunded state and local pension funds are reaping a historic windfall thanks to billions of dollars in record market gains and surplus tax revenues. Now they need to decide what to do with the money in an environment where assets are richly priced and...
July 15th – In N Out
What I'm Reading In N Out: Starwood is throwing in the towel on the mall business, selling 22 of the 30 malls that it owned before COVID and taking a loss in order to get out from underneath approximately $2 billion in CMBS debt. Essentially, Starwood decided that they will...
April 23rd – Dead on Arrival
What I'm Reading Dead on Arrival: $12.3 trillion of economic stimulus over the past year effectively killed off the US credit default cycle despite the lingering pandemic, resulting in the lowest-rated companies enjoying their cheapest borrowing costs in history. Bloomberg Blowback: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced an interim rule...
April 22nd – Sleight of Hand
What I'm Reading Sleight of Hand: WeWork is once again attempting to go public, this time via SPAC merger. However, the co-working company's aggressive projections and unconventional financial metrics are once again raising investor concerns about its viability. Globe Street More of the Same: When it comes to people moving during...
March 24th – Deep Cuts
What I'm Reading Flush: Lenders who are desperate to generate yield are pouring capital into financing the white-hot home flipping market. This is not really a concern for now as competition is pushing rates down at a time when profits are near all-time highs. However, it could become problematic when...
February 23rd – Showing My Age
One Big Thing One of my blogging topics is narrative violation. A narrative violation what happens when a piece of data runs counter to a popular story or trend. The classic example of this was the whole “millennials never want to own homes or cars” thing that was making the...
February 10th – The Great Migration
What I'm Reading The Great Migration: A new report from JBREC suggests that An estimated 400,000 households will move specifically due to their work at home challenges. This segment will be dominated by young families, who report frustration with the limitations (noise, space, privacy) of their current setup for remote...
February 5th – Out of the Bottle
What I'm Reading Out of the Bottle: The CRE industry has been notoriously slow to embrace technology. However, COVID has led to a substantial acceleration in the adoption of technology as a means to adapting. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, things are unlikely to go back...
February 3rd – Normalized
What I'm Reading Normalized: Before the pandemic, the barriers to widespread remote work were as much mental as they were technological. Now those barriers have broken down completely and the implications are huge for both regional population flows and the future of the office market. The Atlantic Back to Normal:...