What I'm Reading Much Ado About Nothing: Despite wild forecasts of an eviction tsunami when the federal moratorium ended, actual eviction filings are still 40% below their pre-pandemic historical average. Five Thirty Eight Also, told ya so. Emptied Out: Omicron is upending grocery operations across the entire supply chain. Staffing...
November 30th – Pass Through
What I'm Reading Limited Competition: Buying real estate off market is much more about avoiding protracted bidding wars and minimizing pursuit costs than it is about buying properties at a deep discount. Globe Street Log Jam: Homebuilders are struggling with labor and material shortages. As a result, construction timelines have...
November 15th – Tilting the Scale
What I'm Reading Tilting the Scale: Target allocations to commercial real estate increased for the eight straight year in 2021 according to a recent survey by Hodes Weill & Associates and Cornell University. The average target allocations increased to 10.7 percent, up 10 basis points from 2020, indicating the potential...
November 8th – The Weakest Link
What I'm Reading The Weakest Link: Environmental and anti-business regulations make California the absolute worst possible place to be the US focal point for supply chain issues. Wall Street Journal Narrative Violation: Last week's taper announcement was met by rates falling substantially at the long end of the yield curve. ...
October 21st – Stacked Deck
What I'm Reading Stacked Deck: Perhaps the biggest reason for the current truck capacity shortage is the surge of goods moving west to east. Simply put, there is too much freight exiting Southern California and too little coming into the area. The problem will persist until the imbalance eases. Think...
October 13th – We’re Number One
What I'm Reading We're Number 1: Money laundering is a problem across the economy but nowhere is it more prevalent than in the real estate - especially in the US. Miami Herald Less for More: While many companies have responded to supply chain shortages and wage inflation by raising prices,...
October 12th – Held Back
What I'm Reading Trailing Indicator: Soaring home prices mean that more appraisals are coming in below contractual sales prices, causing deals to collapse. The fact that it often takes a couple of months to close these transactions means that comps, which appraisers rely heavily upon, tend to lag. While painful...
October 11th – No Vacancy
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...
May 24th – No Slack
What I'm Reading No Slack: Nearly every economic issue that we are currently experiencing is a result of the lack of slack in our system being a feature and not a bug. David Merkel sums the conundrum up perfectly: There's not enough slack in the system. We need more redundancy....
May 3rd – Chopping Block
What I'm Reading Chopping Block: The credit tenant net lease sector will be particularly hard-hit if the 1031 exchange is eliminated as proposed in the Biden tax plan. Globe Street Passed Along: Skyrocketing lumber prices have added $36k to the price of new homes, according to the NAHB. Housing Wire...