In mid-September, coverage of the Census Bureaus’ latest monthly retail sales release focused on how the 2.5 percent year-over-year increase in retail sales in August was a sign of ongoing consumer strength. But the retail sales report is not inflation adjusted, it is expressed in nominal terms. This nominal 2.5 percent growth, therefore, excludes ...

With interest rates high, transaction volumes low, and property prices generally on the decline, it’s safe to say that the commercial real estate (CRE) market is undergoing an adjustment period. The market adjustment has triggered a process referred to as “price discovery,” in which many buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for lower entry ...

With interest rates well above recent lows and commercial property prices declining, commercial real estate (CRE) credit remains tight. How tight, exactly, is one of the questions that the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) attempts to answer.

As rent growth has softened across all asset classes, property owners and operators have increased their focus on limiting expense growth. However, this has proven difficult for some line items, as both property insurance, and repairs and maintenance (R&M) expenses have increased significantly over the last three years. In this edition of the ...

Multifamily capitalization (cap) rates have now increased for three consecutive quarters, the first time since the Great Financial Crisis. This is a sign that investors are requiring higher yields today in order to purchase a property.

The commercial real estate (CRE) market is in a reset. Deal activity is down, and property prices are declining. We recently examined what clues history can provide about the potential length and depth of CRE price declines. Today, let’s examine what current CRE fundamentals can tell us about where we are in the process of resetting.

The data is clear – commercial real estate (CRE) property prices are undergoing an adjustment. With that in mind, many industry professionals and investors are asking the next logical questions – how far will prices fall and when will prices bottom out and recover. Examining historical CRE data offers some clues, but, as the old adage goes, ...

Securing commercial real estate (CRE) financing in today’s market is no easy task. After the three bank failures this year, which triggered increased regulatory scrutiny of bank-held CRE loans, banks have pulled back on lending. This is especially true for riskier varieties of lending, such as construction loans, which involve assets that are not ...

Building a property from the ground up entails substantially more risk than purchasing an existing building that is already generating income. Likewise, financing construction is riskier than lending against existing structures since development projects don’t generate income to pay loan interest until they are completed. For this reason, most ...

In times of economic uncertainty, people tend to stay put. After all, why take on new financial obligations, like an apartment lease, when the future is less certain? Today, though unemployment remains low, inflation remains high, and the recent slew of layoffs at tech companies has many worried about their own financial position. The recent, ...