Banks, Conduits Lead Lending Activity for CRE
It’s shaping up to be another big year for commercial and multifamily lending—especially for banks and conduit lenders, according to the latest figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), an industry trade group. “Commercial and multifamily borrowing is running at about the same pace as 2013, even though the volume of loans maturing and needing to be refinanced is 23 percent lower than last …
5 Reasons Occupancy is Growing
Most people think that when a flood of new supply hits the apartment market, occupancy and effective rents will go down. That’s true in most cases, but not in the first half of 2014, according to Axiometrics research. Even though 180,000 units have come on line in the past year, with thousands more on the way in the third and fourth quarters, occupancy and …
Raleigh-Cary has nation’s second fastest growing...
As the US economy is expected to taper out at a long-run growth rate under 3%, the Raleigh-Cary market will likely rise and remain above 4% growth through 2020. >>Click here for full story
Buying a Home
There are cracks in the foundation. Nothing structural. Nothing that’s going to threaten the stability of the home, but they’re there. Nooks, crannies and holes through which seeps an invisible threat. Colorless, odorless and undetectable by your average human, it is nonetheless the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Radon gas – even the name sounds ominous, evoking images of …
Manhattan Apartments
In Manhattan, uptown means north (more precisely north-northeast, which is the direction the island and its street grid system is oriented) and downtown means south (south-southwest)
Why Live in New York
In contrast with New York City’s urban atmosphere, the vast majority of the state is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes.
Selling Your Home
Downsizing, upsizing, looking for something new, or any reason in between, you’re considering selling a New York property and we’re ready to help you with 23 full-time Sales Executives, a full-service support staff, legal department, and in-house marketing department. WP Estate invests over $2 million each year marketing properties on New York only, targeting qualified buyers. That’s almost $5,000 per listing. No other company invests in …
Sidebar on the Left
New York County as a whole covers a total area of 33.77 square miles (87.5 km2), of which 22.96 square miles (59.5 km2) are land and 10.81 square miles (28.0 km2) are water. A modern redrawing of the 1807 version of the Commissioner’s Grid plan for Manhattan, a few years before it was adopted in 1811. Central Park is absent. One neighborhood of New …
Video in slider
The blog post slider is automatically created with images you upload to the post and one video from Vimeo or YouTube (optional). It’s built on the Boostrap slider. When you enter the blog post, the slider is the first to show. Click on any thumbnail, and the slider will open. You have an up arrow to close the slider back to its original format. …
Images in post
On the topic of alignment, it should be noted that users can choose from the options of None, Left, Right, and Center. In addition, they also get the options of Thumbnail, Medium, Large & Fullsize. The image above happens to be centered. The rest of this paragraph is filler for the sake of seeing the text wrap around the 150×150 image, which is left …
Sidebar on the right
To the north, the Harlem River divides Manhattan Island from Bronx and the mainland United States. Several small islands are also part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randall’s Island, Wards Island, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York Harbor. Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles (59 km2) in area, 13.4 miles …
Full Width Post
The logo is a rebus borrowed by Milton Glaser from a Montreal radio campaign. CJAD Montreal Quebec Canada ran a campaign entitled “Montreal, the city with a heart”. The logo consists of the capital letter I, followed by a red heart symbol (♥), below which are the capital letters N and Y, set in a rounded slab serif typeface called American Typewriter. Glaser expected …
Raleigh #4 Fastest-Growing City For Renters in US
If you are renting an apartment in Raleigh, you are among the fourth fastest-growing population in the country. Raleigh’s population grew 4.8% from 2010 to 2012. >>Click here for full story
Secondary & Tertiary markets to shine in 2014
St. Romain, managing director for capital markets at Chicago-based Jones Lang-Lasalle, sees a shift occurring as opportunities cool off in primary markets, and secondary markets become the shining stars of 2014…St. Romain is particularly interested in the Southeast and feels many markets in that area have a lot of depth and room for success. >>Click here for full story
Apartment construction at an all-time high in Charlott...
Apartment construction in the Charlotte region has hit an all-time high, according to the latest report from research firm Real Data, with the average vacancy rate expected to rise during the next year…There are 10,067 apartments units under construction in the region — including 8,122 in Mecklenburg County — and an additional 11,003 units proposed, according to the firm’s latest report… >>Click here for full story
Multi-Family’s Maximal Momentum
Multifamily in Charlotte and the Carolinas still has its mojo–lenders are still willing to lend for it, and investors are still looking to buy it because they both believe in the sector’s upside for years to come…Demand for multifamily loans in the Carolinas continues to be strong in all sectors, as job growth strengthens and population growth expands… >>Click here for full story
Investors Gaga Over Multi-Family
Which do investors want more in greater Charlotte, Class-A or Class-Bapartments? Neither, ARA principal Blake Okland tells us. They’ve been going after As for a while, but as those opportunities dwindle, Bs will do quite nicely. (The sale of Alpha-Bits cereal is also through the roof.) Blake says that 2012 and 2013 were dominated by new urban infill properties… >>Click here for full story
North Carolina & Texas headline nation’s mo...
Every few days there seems to be a new ranking of the “best” cities that features North Carolina locales, and here’s a new one that takes into account affordability. Charlotte ranks fourth and Raleigh ranks sixth among the nation’s six most affordable cities evaluated by consumer website Cheapism.com. Texas claims the top three and fifth spots. >> Click here for full story
Politics & CRE Sales (Déjà Vu)
The failure of Congress and the administration to reach a budget agreement before the Oct. 1 deadline, the possibility that the debt ceiling will not be raised before the nation is unable to pay its obligations, and the huge swings in the stock and bond markets are all too familiar. After the last time we went through this and our nation’s credit rating was …
What do students really want in housing?
When it comes to student housing, one thing is pretty much clear: The dorm days are over. To satisfy both cost and quality-of-life concerns, most students have moved off campus into modernized student housing communities. Competition for their rent dollars hinges on several key components of the rental property: proximity to school; apartment size and plenitude of storage space; availability of one bathroom for …
Confidence in Multifamily at All-Time High
The apartment and condominium market continued to gain momentum in the second quarter with builders’ and developers’ confidence in the sector soaring to an all-time high, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ multifamily index. The index rose to its highest reading since 2003, which is the year the index began. The index measures builder and developer sentiment in the apartment and condo …
Second Quarter Apartment Markets Mixed in Latest NMHC ...
While demand for apartment homes remained strong, rising interest rates exerted negative pressure on the industry’s ability to secure debt financing according to the National Multi Housing Council’s (NMHC) July Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions. Only the Market Tightness Index (55) remained above the breakeven line of 50 this quarter. Sales Volume (46) and Equity Financing (49) dipped, with Debt Financing dropping sharply …
America’s 10 Fastest Growing College Towns
Raleigh checks in at #1 in America’s fastest growing college towns according to NREI. » Click here for full story
Highwoods to Develop MetLife’s Global Technology and O...
Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties has unveiled its plans to develop a $110 million office park for MetLife on Weston Parkway in Cary. Called Weston Lakefront, the 100 percent pre-leased build-to-suit campus along the shores of Lake Crabtree will initially include two, 213,500-square-foot, LEED-certified office buildings with structured parking. The facilities will be located on 26.5 acres of a 40-acre site Highwoods owns near the Raleigh-Durham …
Top Metros with Rising Apartment Rent Rates
The Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor are the earliest leading indicators of how asking prices and rents are trending nationally and locally. They adjust for the changing mix of listed homes and therefore show what’s really happening to asking prices and rents. Because asking prices lead sales prices by approximately two or more months, the Monitors reveal trends before other price …
Motel Makeover
Developers are turning roadside ruins into affordable housing The Luna Lodge once welcomed weary travelers making their way on old Route 66 through New Mexico. One of the many motels that sprouted up along the famed highway in the 1950s, Luna was built at a time when families vacationed by car and stayed in mom-and-pop motels advertising cheap rates. But as Route 66 was …
EPA Study: Infill Represents 21% of New-Home Construct...
Nationally, infill development qualifies as a widespread trend that many housing and planning experts love to discuss. But a new study by the EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities shows that the presence of infill varies significantly in housing markets across the country, with infill accounting for just 2% of new-home construction in Prescott, Ariz., and 80% in San Jose, Calif. “The biggest surprise was …
Exclusive Research: 7,000 Students Reveal Their Housin...
To satisfy both cost and quality-of-life concerns, most students have moved off campus into modernized student housing communities, and competition for their rent dollars hinges around several key factors: be close to school, build big apartments with lots of storage, and make sure residents have their own bathroom (even if they share a bedroom). » Click here for full story
Apartment Owners Tackle Negative Online Reviews
ApartmentRatings.com has long been considered the most controversial of the ratings websites out there. Many managers and owners consider it a hotbed for resident hostility. In a recent small scale survey distributed and compiled by Houston-based Multifamily Insiders and sponsored by Lutherville, Md.-based SatisFacts Research and Corralville, Iowa-based Apartment Grade, 58 percent of respondents said they felt they received a false rating. » Click here for full story
The Interest Rate Surge and Its Impact on Multifamily
We all knew the ultra-low mortgage rates seen over the last couple years wouldn’t last forever. Still, the recent rise of a full percentage point over a two-month period left even the steeliest of apartment professionals reaching for their Pepto-Bismol. » Click here for full story
National Apartment Trend Q2 2013
Reis VP of Economics & Research, Dr. Victor Calanog, provides an update on the apartment sector performance for the 2nd quarter of 2013. 13 quarter streak of declining vacancies came to an end in Q2 2013 27,000 units came online in the second quarter Asking rent grew by 0.6% while effective rent grew by 0.7% East coast and California vacancy rates are tight » Click …
CHARLOTTE: Carolinas Attracting Institutional Capital
The Carolinas are on the national stage now for multifamily investors looking for properties…… » Click here for full story
Riding the Interest-Rate Wave….Sellers take note...
We all witnessed the recent volatility in the stock market that was spurred by commentary from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, on the potential unwinding of quantitative easing. The commercial real estate industry also took a collective breath when 10-year Treasury yields increased over 100 basis points over a 45-day window in response to his commentary. None of this should come as a surprise …
Student-Housing Sector Gets “A” Grade from Experts
After showing impressive resilience during the Great Recession, the student-housing sector is set for a strong future and is attracting increased interest from investors. Those were some of the points made by a panel of student-housing experts on a recent episode of the “Commercial Real Estate Show.” My guests and I examined many topics related to the sector, including in-demand amenities, rent growth, financing …
A Deep Dive into the Federal Reserve’s View of CRER...
The Federal Reserve Bank’s plan to ease its monthly bond acquisitions, otherwise known as quantitative easing, has sent reverberations through the markets. Most notably, yields on 10-year Treasuries have jumped to around 2.5 percent—up from a low of 1.66 percent in early May. Since Treasuries are the basis for many types of debt…… » Click here for full story
Students’ Housing Choices Focus on Value
Yesteryear’s undergrads may have spent money frivolously, but today’s students, with the recession in their rear view mirror, are intent on curbing debt and getting the most for their rental dollar. The term “budget-conscious college student” might seem like an oxymoron, but nowadays it’s not. Today’s undergrads are more conscious of expenses than their predecessors. » Click here for full story
Five Unexpected Design Trends
We don’t mean the skinny jeans and scarf your hipster neighbor wears—we’re talking about features that make a Class-A multifamily property really pop in the luxury world. Humphreys & Partners Architects CEO Mark Humphreys shared the hottest amenities, David Letterman half-style. » Click here for full story
CFO Survey Preview: Cap Rates to Rise Next Year
Jay Hiemenz is hopeful that the first markets into the recession are now, finally, making their way out. The Alliance Residential CFO is keeping a close eye on specific markets that may have room for growth. Phoenix-based Alliance is using a green movement to attract potential residents while employing aggressive research and development and marketing tools to keep NOI in the black….. » Click here for full …
Disposition Watch: Is Now the Best Time to Sell?
Record prices paid on trophy assets suggest we’re not too far from reaching the top of the upturn. It sometimes seems like every day, another apartment building is sold for a record price. But is now the best time to sell? A 250-unit building in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood recently went for $158 million, or $632,000 per unit, a new record for the Windy …
25 REITs Most Likely To Buy Your Property in 2013
This may well be the year that property owners in secondary and tertiary markets get a chance to cash in on the spending spree of the nation’s largest publicly held REITs and real estate operating companies.
