What I'm Reading Pacman: BREIT is buying another giant operating platform. This time, its industrial investor PS Business Parks, which will be purchased for $7.6 billion. Business Wire Permanent capital continues to eat the (commercial real estate) world. Race to the Bottom: Companies keep paring down their demands for days...
July 14th – Target Rich Environment
What I'm Reading Diamond Hands: Baby Boomers hold the lion's share of real estate wealth in the United States and are showing a higher inclination than previous generations to age in place rather than moving to assisted living. The result has been less housing supply for subsequent generations. New York...
April 15th – Out of Balance
What I'm Reading Out of Balance: Garden style apartments make up 49% of existing inventory in the US and typically consist of more affordable B and C properties that appeal to working class tenants. However, thanks to the high cost of materials and land, only 3.6% of all apartments in...
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 12th – Stressing Out
What I'm Reading Stressing Out: Fitch Ratings published a stress test that concluded, in a worst case scenario, office values could fall 50% if remote work sticks. Fitch ran various stress scenarios ranging from moderate to severe to determine how telework would impact demand, rent and net cash flow on...
February 22nd – Deep Thoughts
February 10th – The Great Migration
What I'm Reading The Great Migration: A new report from JBREC suggests that An estimated 400,000 households will move specifically due to their work at home challenges. This segment will be dominated by young families, who report frustration with the limitations (noise, space, privacy) of their current setup for remote...
February 9th – Hybrid Model
What I'm Reading Hybrid: Retail stores are increasingly adopting a hybrid model, whereby they accommodate both in-store shoppers and the fulfillment of e-commerce orders, creating a new asset class that sits somewhere between retail and distribution. This is likely to lead to major changes in the next few year. For...
February 3rd – Normalized
What I'm Reading Normalized: Before the pandemic, the barriers to widespread remote work were as much mental as they were technological. Now those barriers have broken down completely and the implications are huge for both regional population flows and the future of the office market. The Atlantic Back to Normal:...
January 13th – Digging Deeper
What I’m Reading Digging Deeper: Last week’s jobs report was ugly on the surface. However, if you look deeper past the temporary losses, it was actually fairly strong given the circumstances and reveals the underlying resilience of the economy. Tim Duy’s Fed Watch Inflection Point: With a vaccination-fueled economic turnaround expected to begin...