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...
April 9th – Gravedancer
What I'm Reading Gravedancer: Amazon is buying up distressed shopping malls and turning them into fulfillment centers, often ruffling the feathers of neighbors - who would prefer to see mixed use redevelopment - in the process. NBC News Culling the Herd: Mall vacancies are increasing at their fastest pace on...
April 7th – Light the Fuse
What I'm Reading Light the Fuse: After a decade-long drought, worker productivity might be about to accelerate thanks to pandemic-induced technological adoption, which could lift economic growth and wages in coming years while staving off inflation pressure. Companies made massive investments in technology, automation and videoconferencing software over the past...
April 5th – Chugging Along
What I'm Reading Chugging Along: The Zillow-Case Shiller Housing Price Forecast showed a 12% YoY increase in February, up from 11.2% in January, with the authors of the forecast commenting that there appears to be "no end in sight." At some point, I have to imagine that rising mortgage rates...
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...
March 23rd – Overflow Conditions
What I'm Reading Overflow: The red hot housing market coupled with stubbornly high unemployment has ignited a boom in new realtors. However, housing supply - which was already low before 2020 - has been dropping like a rock and there are now more realtors than homes for sale in the...
March 18th – Liquid Diet
One Big Thing Interesting story in Globe Street early this week about ReadyCap providing $104MM in construction-to-bridge financing on a new 200 unit apartment building in San Francisco. The project had apparently been behind on leasing thanks to COVID and therefore not able to obtain permanent financing when the construction...
March 17th – Lifeline
What I'm Reading Lifeline: Of the three relief bills passed by Congress over the past year, the latest is probably the most beneficial to the CRE industry. Here's a summary of what the bill contains that will help the industry: $40 billion for rental assistance $25 billion in restaurant industry...
March 15th – Piggy Bank
What I'm Reading Piggy Bank: Cash out refinances have hit their highest level since the financial crisis as homeowners take advantage of low rates. Cash out transactions were muted over the past decade in the wake of the Great Recession but came back with a vengeance in 2020 as mortgage...
March 10th – Postponement
What I'm Reading Postponed: The Federal Housing Finance Agency has announced that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will extend multifamily forbearance for COVID-19. Qualifying multifamily property owners will be eligible for forbearance through June 30, 2021. The program was scheduled to expire on May 31, 2021. This move includes eviction...