The incredible disappearing Starwood CRE investor
The $10 billion fund from Starwood Capital Group has been trying to preserve its available cash and credit by limiting investor redemptions. In the first quarter, the fund was hit with $1.3 billion in...
Rents fall behind inflation
Tracking rents is important for understanding the dynamics of the housing market. For example, the sharp increase in rents helped me deduce that there was a surge in household formation in 2021 (September 2021:...
Rent control still the wrong solution to housing woes
Restricting the price of housing kills incentives to supply places to live.
Rent control is having something of a moment: In Los Angeles, tenants are invoking a law that imposes limits on apartments built on...
Market demand sets stage for few rent hikes
While asking rents for new leases nationally are running nearly flat over the past 12 months, those figures are heavily influenced by the Sunbelt, where record-high supply has turned rent growth negative in some...
Investors circle overleveraged apartments
Rescue capital is available for apartment borrowers that need it, but relatively few owners of over-leveraged apartment properties are willing to pay the price—so far.
High interest rates have stranded the owners of over-leveraged apartment...
Interest rates slow apartment development
Rising interest rates, tighter lending and flattening rents in parts of the country have left property companies from California to Florida waiting for financing that may not come soon.
+500 days (up 45% from 2019)...
Why Johnny can’t build
We were once a nation of builders—from the toll roads and canals of the early nineteenth century and the railroads of the second half of that busy century, to the construction of power, energy,...
Appliance payoff models explode
^58 percent increase in requested quotes to thousands of appliance repair businesses y/y (2022-2023)
^43 percent increase in appliance spend in 2023 compared to 2013—rising from $390 to $558 over the decade
Why? 1987. Home appliances...
Disparate impact of high interest rates
Disparate impact of high interest rates has adversely impacted millions of low- and middle-income families—and housing providers. More often high interest rates depress stock and housing prices, and other asset values— impacting all income...
Rules that make dishwashers, wash machines perform worse also illegal
Plaintiffs argue that the Department of Energy has no legal authority to impose its own water use limits on energy-consuming home appliances.
The federal regulations that make dishwashers and washing machines worse are also illegal....
Office to apartments
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Hybrid work is likely here to stay. This shift isn’t just changing lifestyles—it’s also affecting commercial spaces. Office vacancy rates post-COVID shot up almost overnight, and they remain near 20 percent nationwide, the...
Deal watch
Oliver Emerson Development, a father-son duo, wants to turn the former Rockford Watch Co. factory in Rockford, Illinois, into affordable housing.
“To be able to do it with my father and be able to contribute...
