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10 Must Reads for the CRE Industry Today (December 27, 2018)

The New York Times looks at why many cities are afraid of becoming the next San Francisco, New York or Seattle. JCPenney stock dropped below $1.00 per share for the first time this week, reports Business Insider. These are among today’s must reads from around the commercial real estate industry.

  1. A New Seattle Housing Law Forbids Landlords from Checking into Tenants’ Criminal History—But Does It Go Too Far? “With slews of tent encampments in a fast-growing city flush with tech-sector cash, it’s tough questioning Seattle’s serious problem with homelessness and affordable housing. But an unprecedented new city law — forbidding landlords from checking into potential renters’ criminal past — is very much in dispute and setting up a closely-watched court battle. Landlords argue their free speech, property rights and possibly their safety is being jeopardized by a law that forces them to close their eyes to relevant public information about possible tenants.” (MarketWatch)
  2. Five Real Estate Developments We’re Watching in 2019 “The Boston Planning and Development Agency approved 41.3 million square feet of real estate development projects in 2018, and some 28 million square feet is under active construction — and that's just in Boston. The real-estate cycle keeps churning. Here are five real-estate development projects we'll be keeping an eye on next year.” (Boston Business Journal)
  3. Sizing Up Real Estate’s Big Earners “While Marc Holliday’s 2017 income was down from its $23.05 million peak in 2015, he remains the highest-paid CEO at a major office REIT. Last year, he took home a $1.35 million salary, a $1.94 million cash bonus and a $4.5 million equity bonus — the latter based on operational targets. SL Green missed some of its goals, including a 97 percent occupancy rate (it managed 95.3 percent) and a 2.5 percent increase in net operating income at the same locations (it increased by 2 percent.)” (The Real Deal)
  4. Happy New Year! May Your City Never Become San Francisco, New York or Seattle “Seattle and Portland have among the fastest all-around job growth. New York has some of the fastest-growing wages. San Francisco has unemployment well below the national average and household incomes among the highest in the country. But San Francisco-ization and the other -izations don’t refer to the process of acquiring any of these good things. Rather, those terms capture the deepening suspicion of many communities that the costs of urban prosperity outweigh the benefits. The tech jobs and the high wages aren’t worth having if they come with worsening congestion, more crowded development or soaring housing costs.” (The New York Times)
  5. As U.S. Soldiers Battle Landlord, Confidential Records Shine Light on His Lucrative Business “Ireland’s historic Capard House is among the vacation properties owned by Rhode Island real estate developer John Picerne. He purchased the estate in 2015 after emerging as one of the largest private landlords on U.S. military bases. The others are the homes of his warrior-tenants, who pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year in rent to live in housing run by Corvias Group, Picerne’s closely held company. Since 2002, Corvias has acquired control of more than 26,000 houses and apartments across 13 military bases.” (Reuters)
  6. The Lack of Affordable Housing Has an Impact on a Family’s Health—a Negative One “While most of us can imagine the immediate trauma of not having a place to call home, it can be harder to grasp the long-term consequences of homelessness and housing instability on people’s lives. Yet these issues affect a large number of families and children in Miami-Dade County, where close to 9,000 students in the school district are homeless or considered ‘unstably housed.’ It’s a number that has increased by 50 percent in just two years. In fact, some estimate the number could be as high as 14,000. This has serious implications not just for academic achievement and cognitive development, but for the health of these children., too.” (Miami Herald)
  7. JCPenney Dips Below $1 for the First Time “JCPenney touched an all-time low of $0.99 a share on Wednesday, its first time trading below $1. The retailer's stock has lost more than 30% over the past month after reporting disappointing third-quarter earnings. Same-store sales dropped 5.4%, fell well short of the 0.61% drop that was expected, according to the data provider Refinitiv. With margins under pressure, JCPenney's net loss widened to $0.48 a share, compared to last year's loss of $0.40.” (Business Insider)
  8. MGM Resorts to Receive $638M for Vegas Property Repositioning “MGM Growth Properties has inked an agreement to pay MGM Resorts International $637.5 million for its investments in the comprehensive repositioning of the former Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. The project transformed the gaming property into Park MGM and NoMad Las Vegas, two distinct luxury hotel brands offering an aggregate 2,993 guestrooms in a single 32-story tower.” (Commercial Property Executive)
  9. South Korean Beauty Brand Leases Herald Square Space “A beauty brand focusing on natural ingredients has leased a space in Herald Square. Seoul-based Innisfree will soon open a shop in the base of the Herald Center at 1293 Broadway between the Bank of America and the new H&M store. The tenant, the eco-friendly subsidiary of South Korean cosmetics conglomerate Amorepacific Group, was represented by Christian Stanton of Cushman & Wakefield.” (New York Post)
  10. Midwest Experts Forecast Six Commercial Real Estate Trends in 2019 “A strong US economy continued to fuel the commercial real estate market in 2018. And while the industry is expected to face headwinds in the form of rising interest rates, tightening credit and lingering uncertainty over the geopolitical climate, many commercial real estate experts remain bullish on the market going into the new year, particularly as the longer-term effects of tax reform come into focus. ‘Interest rate movement will be front and center in 2019,’ says Steven Weinstock, first vice president and regional manager of Marcus & Millichap’s Chicago Oak Brook office and national director of the company’s National Land Group.” (GlobeSt.com)
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