What I'm Reading Wait and See: The office market is in for a long period of adjustment as tenants take a non-committal, wait and see approach to what the future will hold while scaling back gradually on their footprint. AVC Anti Establishment: Americans have unprecedented access to marijuana as numerous...
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...
March 3rd – Short Term Bet
What I'm Reading Short Term Bet: As thousands of retail leases come up for renewal, their duration is increasingly shrinking, as businesses grapple with an unpredictable future and look for ways to slash costs, stay flexible and maintain leverage over their landlords, even after the health crisis abates. If the...
February 2nd – Deteriorating
What I'm Reading Deteriorating: Moody's Analytics REIS is out with a somewhat devastating report for the office sector, predicting that vacancies will likely show their largest increase this year. The report predicts that the occupancy continue to deteriorate until at least 2023 with employers still pushing off physical space decisions...
February 1st – Prophecy
What I'm Reading Prophecy: Starting back in the summer of 2020, whenever people ask me what I think will end the market mania, my (somewhat tongue in cheek) answer has been that the market top will occur once WeWork is taken public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger. ...
January 28th – Storm Clouds
What I'm Reading Storm Clouds: The apartment sector has been a bright spot during COVID-19 but that is starting to change. Enhanced eviction protection, lower rent collections and unprecedented declines in asking rent in some urban markets are taking their toll on apartment owners. During the pandemic, the share of...
January 22nd – Deluge
What I'm Reading Deluge: Office occupancy losses hit record lows in 2020, totaling 84MM square feet with more than half of the losses occurring in CBDs. Expensive markets with a high concentration of tech-and energy-companies were the most impacted. The only relative bright spots were secondary and tertiary markets, which...
January 21st – Misplaced Priorities
One Big Thing President Joe Biden comes into office with a housing plan that includes a $15,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. IMO, encouraging first time homebuying is a worthy goal but doesn't really solve our current problem - not enough houses are getting built to satisfy existing demand, which would...
January 8th – Ultimatum
What I’m Reading Ultimatum: In another sign that flexible work arrangements will become a job perk, twenty-nine percent of working professionals say they would quit their jobs if they couldn’t continue working remotely, according to an online survey of 1,022 professionals by LiveCareer, an online resume and job search consulting...
December 7th – Behind the Curve
What I’m Reading Behind the Curve: As expected, eCommerce orders surged to previously unseen levels this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It got to the point that UPS put limits on pickups at several large retailers in an effort to not overwhelm their systems, despite knowing that this was coming. Wall Street...