Editors’ Weekly News Roundup May 12 – May 16
Domestic migration can create winners and losers among states and metro areas, but for Connect CRE readers, the topic of domestic migration proved to be a winner this past week. A story derived from analysis by Placer.ai, Where the Relocation Hotspots are in 2025, topped the roster of the week’s most-read stories.
The firm’s analysis examined migration patterns over the past four years and pinpointed states and metro areas emerging as magnets for relocation. Leading among states was South Carolina, where an influx of newcomers was equivalent to 3.6% of its January 2025 population.
Ranking second was another national story about growth over time—in this case, quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year growth in commercial real estate lending. CRE Lending Surges 90% Y-O-Y in Q1 summarized the latest findings of CBRE in its Lending Momentum Index, which tracks the pace of CBRE-originated commercial loan closings in the U.S.
Among other findings, the CBRE report looked at commercial mortgage loan spreads, which tightened significantly during the first quarter of 2025. For multifamily loans in particular, the spreads were the narrowest in three years.
The remaining three stories in the past week’s top five were more regional in nature. A story reported on our Washington, DC & Mid-Atlantic page, Former Amazon Warehouse in Philadelphia Sells for $10M, ranked third for the week.
Although the e-commerce giant is currently subleasing the space, the sale history of the property offers an anecdotal example of the Amazon effect. The property at 13200 Townsend Dr. in Northeast Philadelphia is evidently now worth nearly 250% of what it sold for in 2019.
Moving from East Coast to West, Connect CRE’s profile of multifamily investment sales powerhouse The Mogharebi Group (TMG) also drew strong reader interest. The Mogharebi Group Story: Investing in People, Redefining Success ranked fourth among the past week’s most-read stories.
The profile delved into TMG’s approach to serving its clients. “Most of the industry is built to put the firm first,” said founder Alex Mogharebi. “We reversed that. At TMG, the client comes first, the advisor second, and the firm third.”
Completing the top five was a progress report on the development and lease-up of a neighborhood shopping center in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of McKinney, TX. Headlined New McKinney Retail Center Corrals Big-Named Tenants, the story reported that Trader Joe’s and Sherwin-Williams have leased space at Eldorado Neighborhood Shops.
SLX Capital is developing the center, which will include a mix of retailers, restaurants and services. It’s expected to open for business in the first quarter of 2026.
While grocery and home improvement seem like pretty stable tenant classes for a shopping center, retail on the whole is facing headwinds—as is industrial—in the form of a tariff climate that remains in flux, sometimes on a daily basis. The latest edition of Weekender sounds out experts across a variety of disciplines on strategies for mitigating tariff whiplash.