Real Estate
Real-estate marketplace firm Zillow is now offering 1% down payments to entice homebuyers (from Bloomberg on August 24)…
Zillow Group Inc. is offering mortgages with just a 1% down payment as it tries to attract house hunters facing the most-unaffordable market in almost four decades. The 1% down payment program is even lower than Freddie Mac’s best of 3%, with Zillow offering to pay 2% of the down payment at closing, according to
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New York City unveils plan to encourage the (extremely costly) conversion of vacant offices into residential housing (from Bloomberg on August 17)…
New York City is rolling out a plan to convert vacant offices into as many as 20,000 new housing units by creating a multi-agency group to help developers cut through red tape and rezoning a section of Manhattan known as Midtown South. The moves come after Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul’s quest for
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is bullish on homebuilders (from The Wall Street Journal on August 14)…
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made a fresh bet on U.S. homebuilders in the second quarter. The company unveiled new positions in D.R. Horton, NVR, and Lennar, together worth more than $800 million at the end of June. The changes in Berkshire’s stock portfolio were disclosed after the market closed Monday, when the company released its
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Falling office commercial real estate (CRE) prices are creating another unexpected headache for New York City landlords (from The Wall Street Journal on July 4)…
For over a century in New York, commercial-property investors have carved up the value of the city’s skyscrapers by separating the land from the building and trading the pieces separately. But now, in the midst of one of the worst office downturns since World War II, that practice is escalating disputes between the owners of
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Global consulting giant McKinsey projects “hybrid work” is here to stay, which indicates demand for office and retail space in major cities is unlikely to recover to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon (from McKinsey Global Institute on July 13)…
Real estate in the world’s superstar cities has not kept up with shifts in behavior caused by the pandemic. The cities’ vibrancy is at risk, and they will have to adapt. Continue reading here.
Morgan Stanley warns the broad CRE market could fall 30% from its peak (from MarketWatch on July 17)…
The U.S. economy isn’t the only thing unwilling to capitulate despite sharply higher interest rates. Commercial real-estate prices have been heading lower in the wake of the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s inflation fight, but the bulk of the pain still looks poised to come, according to Morgan Stanley analysts. Prices for apartment buildings, offices
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