Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are links to five stories that caught our eyes in recent days:
• Upscale Mall Landlords Pay Up to Stay Chic by Liam Pleven of WSJ
Key excerpt:
“Malls are like the fashion business,” said Alexander Goldfarb, a senior analyst at Sandler O’Neill + Partners. “It’s very expensive to look good.”
• Developers Expanding Single-Family Build-for-Rent Market by Randyl Drummer of CoStar
Key excerpt:
“Build-to-rent development has emerged over the last year to become one of the hottest new segments of real estate development, with privately held companies as well as the largest publicly traded developers and acquirers of single-family rentals jumping into the market. Multifamily builders and investors frustrated at high apartment prices and shrinking yields appear to be helping drive the nascent build-to-rent trend.”
• Lenders Are Getting Choosier When It Comes to Risky Real Estate Deals by Sarah Mullholland of Bloomberg
Key excerpt:
“Banks are proceeding with caution as the specter of slowing economic growth rattles financial markets and shakes investor confidence in a six-year recovery that’s helped lift property values to records. Lenders are going to be more selective and discriminating as the year progresses, said Mark Myers, the head of the commercial real estate business at Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. commercial-property lender.”
• U.S. multifamily mortgages grew at fastest pace since 1993 by Stephen Lam of Reuters
Key excerpt:
“The amount of outstanding U.S. mortgages for multifamily homes rose to $1.06 trillion in 2015, up 10.4 percent from a year earlier, which was its fastest annual pace since 1993, a U.S. industry group said on Monday.”
• Do First Floor Retail Spaces Pencil Out for Multifamily Developers? By Bendix Anderson, National Real Estate Investor
Key excerpt:
“But retail space needs a large pool of potential shoppers to survive. For first floor shops, that often requires a busy neighborhood with other shops nearby. The challenge for apartment project developers is that they are often directed by local officials to build retail spaces long before lively retail neighborhoods exist around their properties. Flexible retail spaces can evolve over time as the neighborhood changes.”