Commercial Real Estate Finance

Posts Tagged ‘ULI’

The Urban Land Institute’s reports aren’t just well-researched and informative; they’re colorful, too (a big plus for someone like myself, who reads tons of these things). As they have for similar reports, the ULI teamed up with accounting giant PwC to survey and analyze industry sentiment affecting real estate investment in Europe. This report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate – Europe, 2013 (click for PDF), includes a list of  7 general issues affecting Europe’s CRE market and investors’ attitudes toward these conditions. It isn’t a Top 10, but close enough… Here are the Top 7 Attitudes Affecting CRE Investment in Europe:

• London is overheated and overpriced (Agree: 44%)
• London is fairly priced as a safe haven (Agree: 28%)
• The crisis in southern Europe represents a great buying opportunity (Agree: 53%)
• Investment in southern Europe should be avoided until markets stabilize (Agree: 41%)
• European prices will be stagnant for the next five years (Agree: 44%)
• The U.S. represents a more attractive investment relevant to Europe (Agree: 33%)
• Asia represents a more attractive investment relative to Europe Agree: 43%)

I’m sure CRE professionals in Europe have plenty of other attitudes, too. Attitudes like, I hope Real Madrid plays better than they did in the last match, or, Let’s go mess with these American tourists! Or anything else people in Europe think about. Read the rest of this entry »

On average, an American spends over $8,000 per year to own and operate a car. Well over a quarter of that sum is simply for gas. 

This alone demonstrates the need for more efficient transportation solutions in today’s communities, a need many urban planners and developers  are trying to address. As communities evolve to better accommodate the movement of its residents, real estate of all kinds will be forced to keep pace.

The Urban Land Institute, which is all over stuff like this, recently published a piece on its UrbandLand website discussing the growing appeal of dense urban communities and strategies for suburban communities to replicate this appeal.

After nearly 60 years of sprawl, economic and demographic changes have reignited the urban consolidation of the early 20th century. There are a number of reasons for this, beyond the cost of long-distance car travel:

•  Thanks to the recession, and perhaps the experience of growing up in the ‘burbs themselves, many post-baby boomers are opting to rent in the city rather than own in the suburbs
• Increased environmental consciousness has made cities appealing for their efficiency (which ties into the whole car thing, of course)
• Generally speaking, the cultural/lifestyle differences between downtown and suburban areas makes urban living attractive to college grads uninterested in the white-picket-fence option Read the rest of this entry »

This list comes from responses to the Urban Land Institute/PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2013 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. Based on the feedback of real estate professionals throughout the country, here are the Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Markets of 2013:

 10. Orange County, California

The ULI reports: “California’s economy continues to struggle, and home prices will still be down more than 27 percent in 2013 from their prerecession peak. Even with that decline, median home prices throughout [Orange] county are about $513,000.”

 9. Dallas/Fort Worth

“…unemployment rates are forecast to fall to 7.2 percent, 1.2 percentage points lower than the U.S. rate of 8.4 percent [at time of publication].”

8. Washington, D.C. 

“Practically since the recession, commercial real estate prices have risen, with investors regarding D.C. investments as ‘recession-proof.’”

7. Seattle

“As the global center for the software industry, Seattle continues to be the focus of many domestic and global investors.”

6. Boston

“An increase in high-technology and biomedical research and development employment continues to take the lead, increasing investor interest in the Boston market.”

5. Houston

“…survey participants believe the main buying opportunities are in the industrial sector.” Read the rest of this entry »

Based on the 2013 Emerging Trends in Real Estate survey, jointly conducted by Urban Land Institute and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, here is a ranking of the Top 10 Most Improved Sources of CRE Funding in 2013:

(Note that these funding sources are ranked according to increased availability, based on the input of respondents.)

10. Private local investors

9. Nonbank financial institutions

8. Commercial banks

7. Securitized lenders/CMBS

6. Private local investors

5. Mezzanine lenders Read the rest of this entry »

And by Future, I mean next year.

Following up on last week’s Top 10 CRE Trends for 2013, here are the Top 10 U.S. Markets to Watch in  2013. Once again, this ranking comes from data compiled and published by ULI and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

10. Orange County, CA 

Investment rank: 9. Development rank: 19. Homebuilding rank: 9.

9. Dallas/Fort Worth

10/7/10

8. Washington, DC

12/9/4

7. Seattle

6/8/7

6. Boston

4/6/8

5. Houston

5/5/6

4. Austin

7/4/5

3. San Jose Read the rest of this entry »

ULI CEO Patrick Phillips explores some of the real estate and development challenges in increasingly urbanized Asian markets:

Read the rest of this entry »

From ULI’s UrbanLand Magazine, here are the Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Trends for 2012:

• Foreign investment: “The U.S. commercial real estate market continues to draw foreign investor interest…”
• Soft economy: “Continued slow macroeconomic growth will potentially stem commercial real estate expansion. Successive quarters of positive gross domestic product (GDP) growth remain below expectations…”
• Favorable fundamentals: “Commercial real estate fundamentals are benefiting from favorable absorption-completion dynamics.” (i.e. a record-low amount of construction is creating greater absorption, driving demand.)
• Maturing debt: An uptick in loan restructurings plus improved property fundamentals has decreased commercial real estate loan delinquencies. However… The high level of maturing debt remains a significant barrier to recovery.”
• Revival of CMBS:  Though CMBS issuance has increased significantly since 2009, “this recovery has potentially stalled due to credit-market volatility.” Read the rest of this entry »

A couple months ago, I emailed a fellow CRE blogger who is based in the Midwest. It was a simple bit of correspondence, intended to say how much I enjoyed his site and to exchange links. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I know the Llenrock Blog–I read it all the time!”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Despite living 1,000 miles apart, in very different markets, we were both familiar with each other’s social media efforts and respective companies. As in other industries, social networks have served to consolidate us, to create relationships between professionals and clients in a way that couldn’t have happened just a decade ago. Yet many CRE firms have been slow to embrace social media as a networking/PR tool, as reported in a recent CoStar Group article.   Read the rest of this entry »