Eight Must Reads for the CRE Industry (Oct. 4, 2022) - Wealth Management

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WMRE Staff | Oct 03, 2022

Home Builders Offer to Sell Homes in Bulk at Discount to Investors “American home builders are stuck with more houses and land than they can sell. That presents an opportunity for investors such as Bruce McNeilage. The co-founder of a rental-home investment company, Kinloch Partners, is looking for a deal on homes so he can rent them out while the single-family rental market is hot. Mr. McNeilage says he has received as many as 10 calls a week from builders eager to sell their homes in bulk and reduce inventory, now that traditional family buyers are backing away with mortgage rates at a 15-year high. Builders have offered to sell him thousands of completed or planned homes at discounts of up to 20% of what they would likely charge prospective home buyers.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street: U.S. Housing Market to See Second Biggest Price Decline Since the Great Depression “National home price declines are uncommon, but it does occur on occasion. It happened in the early 1980s, then again in the early 1990s, and most notably in the years following the 2008 housing crash. That said, sharp home price declines are incredibly rare: Only the Great Depression and the Great Recession saw nationwide home prices fall in the double-digits range. That history—or lack of history—is why recent outlooks published by Wall Street titans are raising eyebrows.” (Fortune)
Office Sector Loses Ground, But Firms Still Own a Lot of It “Office has morphed from a sector that once made up a third or more of real estate managers’ portfolios to one that real estate managers say they have been de-emphasizing, with the pandemic and resulting work-from-home trend curbing demand. But real estate managers still own a sizable portion of it. The weighted average of office assets of the top 50 managers of U.S. tax-exempt institutional assets as of June 30 was 22%, Pensions & Investments’ 2022 real estate money manager survey showed.” (Pensions & Investments)
Economic Turmoil Separates Manufacturing’s Have and Have Nots “U.S. manufacturers have been weathering the effects of rising interest rates, a strong dollar and a slowing global economy remarkably well. For some of them, at least, that probably can’t continue. The Institute for Supply Management on Monday reported that its index of manufacturing activity slipped to 50.9 in September from 52.8 in August. But for the 28th month in a row it was above 50—the cutoff between manufacturing contraction and growth. Likewise, a manufacturing index from S&P Global showed U.S. activity continued to grow last month.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Employers May Just Be Doing Hybrid Work Wrong “The report urges employers to “rebuild social capital” by using in-person time in the physical office to build team bonds. Failing to do so, it says, could mean losing out on attracting and retaining top talent. What’s more, 73% of employees and 78% of business decision makers say they need a better reason to go in than just company expectations. To the contrary, 84% of employees would be lured to the office to socialize with co-workers, while 85% would be motivated by rebuilding team bonds. Employees also said they would go to the office more frequently if they knew their direct team members would be there (73%) or if their work friends were there (74%).” (GlobeSt.com)
Twin Cities, Richmond Area Booming for Medical Office Space “Outpatient volumes are expected to grow by nearly 33% in Minneapolis and 28% in Richmond over the next 10 years, making those two of the most promising medical office space markets, according to JLL. ‘These rates exceed the national average of almost 21%, which is fueling the strong growth in medical office space in these regions,’ JLL Managing Director Jay Johnson, U.S. Practice Leader, Healthcare Markets, tells GlobeSt.com.” (GlobeSt.com)
Business Travel Is Coming Back with Added Leisure, as Companies Find New Ways to Help Employees Enjoy ‘Bleisure’ “With companies bolstering their business travel spending as the world emerges from the pandemic, almost four-fifths of U.K. business travelers are demanding their company prioritize their well-being, new research from American Express has found. Workers are demanding more combined business and leisure trips—also known as bleisure—more access to business class and the airline lounges, and the ability to bring family members or partners along with them at no extra cost.” (Fortune)
New York City Food Halls Return in a Big Way “As if it were recovering from a long (in this case, two-plus years) illness, New York’s appetite is finally back. In September, New Yorkers nabbed two new food halls, in Midtown with the Singaporean Urban Hawker and in the Seaport District with the Tin Building. And that’s not even counting the tasting menu of other food halls that emerged over the last year, such as Urbanspace’s downtown outpost at 100 Pearl Street, or the Moynihan Food Hall that opened on the Far West Side.” (Commercial Observer)