Editors’ Weekly News Roundup, April 3rd – 7th
News out of California led the past week’s top five stories, and unfortunately it wasn’t good news. Readers both in the Golden State and nationwide turned to Report: San Francisco Office Availability at a Record 32.7% for the latest word on an office market that has been especially hard-hit by secular trends. The bottom line: it will be a tenant’s market for some time to come.
The news is brighter, and activity is stronger, in the booming single-family-rental/build-for-rent market. A Q&A with an expert in this sector, Berkadia’s Russ Hardy Brings Us Up to Date on SFR/BFR, became the week’s second most-read story. One shadow across the landscape is construction financing, although Hardy told Connect CRE that the challenges vary according to the depth of the developer’s lending relationships.
Speaking of lending, the third installment of our series on debt maturities ranked third for reader interest this past week. The story asked, and answered, the question Solutions to Debt Maturities: What Are They?
The solutions presented in Amy Sorter’s conversations with financing experts each come with a caveat of some kind. The best advice? Open communication channels with lenders. You can find the fourth in this series in the latest Weekender.
To many younger members of the commercial real estate industry, John Kilroy Jr. has been a pillar of the industry throughout their careers thus far. That will change in 2023, though, as the longtime CEO of Kilroy Realty steps down.
Kilroy Realty CEO John Kilroy Jr. to Retire at End of 2023 was the fourth most-read story of the past week. Named CEO of the Los Angeles-based company in 1991, Kilroy said he will work with its board on the search for his successor.
Rounding out the top five on a positive note, Consumer Prices Rise More Slowly in February, Suggesting Slowdown Trend for Inflation reported that the personal consumption expenditures index, a key indicator monitored by the Federal Reserve, posted a smaller increase during February than the markets expected. “The inflation trend looks promising for investors,” Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, told CNBC.
It’s been said many times that as California goes, so goes the rest of the U.S. While this continues to hold true, a real estate development trend that has been gaining traction in Texas took on a new wrinkle this past week. Developer Hicks Ventures has upped the ante on its new mass timber project in Houston with the announcement that it’s also targeting net zero operational carbon, becoming the first office development in Texas to do so.
Given that commercial real estate is seen as one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases, could this be the harbinger of a nationwide movement? That’s a possibility, although industry members in Texas and elsewhere will have to wait until 2024 to find out how feasible the net zero commitment is in practice.