What I'm Reading Piling On: The US Commerce Department has made a recommendation to more than double tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber in the midst of a housing affordability crisis that has been driven in part by soaring building costs. If the Biden Administration wanted to make the crisis worse,...
May 20th – Shock Absorber
What I'm Reading Shock Absorber: Normal recessions often produce a vicious cycle of foreclosures. When rents and property values fall, building owners stop paying their mortgages and lenders foreclose, pushing prices into a further downward spiral. That hasn’t happened in this cycle as regulators allowed bank to delay loan payments...
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...
February 26th – Mind the Gap
One Big Thing Treasury yields are soaring of late so of course a lot of the conversation around commercial real estate in general and multi-family in particular is when cap rates will begin to reflect this. I have a bit of a contrarian take that I outlined on a Twitter...
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...