Editors’ Weekly News Roundup August 4 – August 8
For commercial real estate, the recent legislative and regulatory news has been positive. Connect CRE has reported on the introduction of the ROAD to Housing Act, an increase in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit cap for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subject of the past week’s most-read story, the Identifying Regulatory Barriers to Housing Supply Act.
The proposed legislation, which we reported inNMHC, NAA Applaud Bipartisan Bill to Curb Restrictive Zoning and Development Regs, would require recipients of federal Community Development Block Grants to report on whether they have already adopted less restrictive land use policies and/or to submit a plan for implementing these policies. The National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association said the bill would “bring attention to barriers on housing development and help address the nation’s housing affordability crisis if signed into law.”
Housing isn’t the only sector in which supply isn’t quite keeping up with demand. The data center space is also seeing vacancy decline even as inventory is increasing. Asset management giant Apollo is getting in on the action by taking ownership of a developer.
A breaking news story with the headline Apollo to Acquire Majority Stake in Stream Data Centers was the second most-read Connect CRE content this past week. Having already delivered 20 hyperscale campuses, Stream Data Centers plans to utilize Apollo’s backing to scale platform-wide development and meet accelerating demand from hyperscale cloud and AI providers across key Tier 1 and Tier 2 U.S. markets.
Continuing the digital infrastructure theme was the past week’s third most-read story, this time on a more local scale. We reported in CoreWeave Acquires NEXT Campus in Kenilworth for $322M that the cloud provider expanded from a full-building lease to ownership of the entire complex.
The site in Kenilworth, NJ formerly housed the headquarters of pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. and was acquired in early 2023 by Machine Investment Group and Onyx Equities for redevelopment into a mixed-use life sciences and innovation hub. Two-and-a-half years later, the site has been sold to CoreWeave as an owner-occupier.
A considerably simpler ownership model with more local implications informed the week’s fourth most-read story. CrownPoint Closes Sale of Shaw’s Supermarket in NH detailed the $7.5-million acquisition of a single-tenant grocery property in Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire.
“This opportunity attracted significant investor interest due to its strong fundamentals: a single-tenant supermarket with a long operating history and zero landlord responsibilities,” said Julius Swolsky, managing partner of CrownPoint Partners, which represented the seller. “We procured multiple offers and ultimately selected a buyer who knew the market intimately, was not in a 1031 exchange and had the ability to close efficiently.”
Completing the top five was a story that widened the scope from local to national. In CRE Mortgage Volume Rises 66% Year-Over-Year in Q2 2025, we reported the results of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations. A rise in originations for office, healthcare and industrial properties led to an overall increase in lending volume in the second quarter.
Adding a grain of salt to the news, MBA associate VP of commercial research Reggie Booker pointed out, “While multifamily and hotel lending remain below last year’s levels, much of the strong annual growth reflects the exceptionally low levels of activity reported last year.” It’s why office lending rose an impressive 140% year-over-year, for example.
For a little more context on data center investment and why this sphere of activity accounted for two of the past week’s five most-read stories, turn to the latest edition of Weekender. There, Amy Sorter unpacks a report on investor demand for data centers and what’s driving that demand.