What I'm Reading Deflating: A new study by data firm VTS, which tracks tens of thousands of negotiations across the U.S. between landlords and tenants found that big companies are sticking with their city-center office buildings. However, they are also cutting back on space, likely driving down rent for years...
April 2nd – Go Time
What I'm Reading Go Time: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing the Senate toward lifting the federal prohibition on marijuana with legislation that would represent the biggest overhaul of federal drug policy in decades. The plan goes beyond decriminalization and is expected to remove marijuana from the list of controlled...
March 12th – Stressing Out
What I'm Reading Stressing Out: Fitch Ratings published a stress test that concluded, in a worst case scenario, office values could fall 50% if remote work sticks. Fitch ran various stress scenarios ranging from moderate to severe to determine how telework would impact demand, rent and net cash flow on...
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 29th – Behind the Scenes
What I'm Reading Behind the Scenes: Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard about the massive short squeezes (and crashes) in troubled retailer GameStop and struggling theater operator AMC over the past couple of weeks. Both companies' stocks have soared but, despite the increases in valuation, both...
January 25th – Rocket Fuel
What I'm Reading Rocket Fuel: Morgan Housel's latest piece about how COVID has substantially accelerated wealth and income inequality is an outstanding read and makes a strong case for an economic boom in the coming years - at least for some. This section on mortgage refinancings and the accompanying chart...
January 15th – Plug and Play
What I'm Reading Plug and Play: Remote work (which may or may not be temporary) during the pandemic has fueled demand for furnished short-term housing. What I find interesting here is that mobility had been falling for decades and the accelerated abruptly. Question is what happens to that increased mobility...
January 13th – Digging Deeper
What I’m Reading Digging Deeper: Last week’s jobs report was ugly on the surface. However, if you look deeper past the temporary losses, it was actually fairly strong given the circumstances and reveals the underlying resilience of the economy. Tim Duy’s Fed Watch Inflection Point: With a vaccination-fueled economic turnaround expected to begin...
January 7th – Reading the Tea Leaves
One Big Thing Now that the elections have come finally, mercifully come to a close, I thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at the likely winners and losers both in the real estate sector and the economy as a whole. I’m going to do...
January 6th – No Going Back
What I’m Reading No Going Back: The pandemic has has accelerated the adoption of data access as an essential CRE technology. At this point, it is no longer just a pandemic solution and is here to stay. Globe Street Priced Out: Despite record low mortgage rates, the spike in housing prices last year...