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10 Must Reads for the CRE Industry Today (February 14, 2018)

Mall REIT dividends rose above 15 percent, signaling weak long-term prospects for the companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. There are several major postal building redevelopments around the country, The New York Times reports. These are among today’s must reads from around the commercial real estate industry.

  1. Mall Dividends Soar Above 15%, Tempting Big Investors “The selloff in retail property stocks over the past year has been so sharp that some mall operators now sport dividend yields greater than 15%, reflecting a widespread belief that the companies’ long-term prospects are bleak.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)
  2. As Work Space, Old Post Offices Have a Timeless Allure “The Postal Service moved out of its longtime main post office in downtown Chicago in 1997, but ideas for remaking the Art Deco behemoth never gained traction. The huge building sat vacant, a far cry from the time when workers could sort up to 35 million letters a day there and residents posted mail in its elegant lobby, an airy space with stone floors and decorative panels. Now, the real estate firm 601W Companies is taking a crack at reviving it.” (The New York Times)
  3. Deutsche Bank Repaying $3.7M to ‘Misled Customers’ After U.S. SEC Action “The SEC’s investigation found that traders and salespeople at the bank made false and misleading statements while negotiating sales of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). The transactions that were investigated took place between 2011 and 2015 in relation to secondary market transactions in non-agency CMBS.” (Forbes)
  4. Instacart Won’t Raise Another Round Before Going Public, and Isn’t Worried About Amazon Competition “Amazon’s rival on the grocery scene with is acquisition of Whole Foods has done nothing to slow Instacart. The grocery delivery start-up just raised $200 million in fresh funding – which boosted its valuation by nearly a billion dollars – and had its best year ever.” (CNBC)
  5. The Future of Real Estate Tech: How We Got Here and What’s Next in an Exploding New Ecosystem “In 2017, venture investors deployed over $5 billion in real estate technology, more than 150 times the $33 million invested in 2010. Once a sector seemingly ignored by the venture industry, real estate tech has come front and center, notably producing two of the three most valuable startups in the United States, WeWork and Airbnb.” (Forbes)
  6. How the Designer of the World’s Tallest Tower Got His Career Off the Ground “Adrian Smith, 73, is founder of Chicago’s Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. The firm has designed the world’s tallest building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the world’s tallest residential building, New York’s Central Park Tower, due in 2020. He spoke with Marc Myers.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)
  7. The States Damaged by the Financial Crisis Still Stand Out a Decade Later “A decade later, echoes of the financial crisis still linger in mortgage debt data, according to research released by the New York Fed on Tuesday.” (MarketWatch)
  8. Office Vacancies Drop to 10-Year Low “Led by Dalls/Fort Worth, 18 of the 48 major markets surveyed by Transwestern have year-over-year positive absorption of greater than one million square feet.” (GlobeSt.com)
  9. Vornado’s Roth Walks Back Comment on Gateway “One of the city’s largest landlords today backpedaled on comments he made during the summer that might have undermined the most important infrastructure project in the region.” (Crain’s New York Business, subscription required)
  10. City Selects Developers to Build 500 Affordable Housing Units on Vacant Lots “The city announced on Tuesday that it had selected development teams to build roughly 500 affordable homes on vacant lots throughout New York, one day after City Comptroller Scott Stringer blasted the city in a report for holding onto hundreds of vacant sites.” (The Real Deal)
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