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...
How to assess a resident’s request for an emotional support animal
Multifamily housing providers are faced with increasing requests from residents with disabilities for emotional support animals (ESA). Requests for ESAs are generating more enforcement actions.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development...
Multifamily industry excluded in FTC’s final rule on junk fees
The multifamily industry was excluded in the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) final "junk fees" rule that targets bait-and-switch pricing tactics that result in unfair competition. The FTC published its final rule on...
Major U.S. Supreme Court decisions coming down the track MAJOR UPDATE
June 28, 2024 Update: The Supreme Court in an unprecedented victory for multifamily and other businesses, has today reversed its 40-year-old decision in Chevron v. Natural Resource Defense Council. This law governed how courts...
The price of disorder
I was once pitched a deal in the heart of the Amazon—Manaus, Brazil. What was I buying? Firstly, a commercial asset. But I couldn’t shake my concern around governance. The sanctity of a contract...
Redfin survey suggests a majority of Americans favor rent control
A recent survey commissioned by Redfin exposes a stark misconception among Americans about rent control. Although economists are in almost total agreement that rent control drives up rent rates over time and...
Multifamily scores ballot winners and losers
The USA is preparing to swear in President-elect Donald J. Trump as its 47th president, or what some housing experts call the return of the nation’s builder-in-chief. Housing was a major focus...
FTC files suit against SFR firm
The Federal Trade Commission is pursuing legal action against Invitation Homes, the largest landlord of single-family homes in the U.S. The complaint filed by the FTC claims the company has taken several illegal actions,...
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...
“Sitting empty:” Vast expanse of federal land eyed for new housing
The White House and the Republican National Committee agree on one thing at least: The sale of surplus federal land could help alleviate a crushing shortage of affordable housing.
Proposals to sell federal land to...
Is illegal immigration a driving force in apartment fundamentals?
Are illegal immigration and deportations truly driving forces behind housing supply, demand, and affordability issues, or are they being overstated by the media and both sides of the political divide? Or put...
INFOGRAPHIC: 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,...
INFOGRAPHIC: 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...
New game post-Chevron
For decades, the judicial doctrine called “Chevron deference” dominated American administrative law.
In the aftermath of Chevron’s demise in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, however, a new legal debate is brewing over an 80-year-old judicial precedent:...
