What I'm Reading No Vacancy: Apartment vacancies hit another low in September, according to RealPage, declining to 2.7%, with rents hitting all-time highs. Globe Street A point of interest here is lender underwriting. One thing that has kept the market (sort of) in check is that multifamily properties are typically...
September 30th – Overreaction
What I'm Reading Overreaction: The feared tsunami of evictions predicted when the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on evictions in August has failed to materialize. In fact, the number of filings have dropped or remained flat since the decision. Washington Post It’s almost as if they relied on...
August 26th – On the Docket
What I'm Reading On the Docket: The Supreme Court could rule on the new CDC eviction ban as early as September. A majority of justices have questioned the constitutionality of the previous extension. However, the current iteration was crafted to address some of these concerns. Globe Street Topping Out? New...
August 13th – Beach Reads Week in Review
What I'm Reading Feeding Frenzy: Bidding wars are typical in for-sale housing during a tight market. Now we are seeing them for apartment rentals. CNBC A Tale of Two Markets: Big apartment landlords are thriving during the eviction moratorium while mom and pop owners of buildings with five or less...
August 5th – Overreach
What I'm Reading Overreach: The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new, targeted federal eviction ban to replace the one that expired over the weekend despite recently admitting that it had no legal standing to do so thanks to an earlier Supreme Court decision. Politico What strikes me as particularly...
August 2nd – Bid Em Up
What I'm Reading Bid Em Up: A new report from real estate technology company Zavvie on iBuying transactions over the first half of 2021 found that offers from iBuyers were on average 104.1 percent of market value. That’s a marked increase from 2020, when iBuyers offers were coming in at...
July 27th – Mismatch
What I'm Reading Mismatch: Most of the US is simultaneously experiencing a severe housing shortage and an office glut. Conventional wisdom suggests that vacant office buildings could be converted to residential uses. However, the bureaucratic processes are difficult, the conversions are typically too costly and office floorplates don't translate well...
June 28th – Postponed Again
What I'm Reading Kicking the Can: The CDC announced another extension of the housing eviction moratorium. The moratorium, which was scheduled to end June 30th and will now be pushed to the end of July. At least the length of the extensions is getting shorter, I guess. Globe Street Fighting...
June 4th – Hitting the Water
What I'm Reading Hitting the Water: The National Marine Manufacturers Association says powerboat sales hit a 13-year high in 2020, with 310,000 new vessels sold, up 12 percent from the previous year. Difficult as it is to believe, 2021 is looking even better. As of February, shipments of new powerboats...
May 7th – All Aboard
What I'm Reading Jumping on Board: When the pandemic hit last year, many of us waited for legendary distressed investor and self-proclaimed "grave dancer" Sam Zell to make an acquisition. Well, the wait is over but the acquisition is unexpected. Rather than targeting a struggling retail, hospitality or office purchase,...