Abandoned golf courses are ripe for redevelopment and offer ideal locations for distribution. E-commerce fulfilment does not usually trigger an image of grassy meadows and gently rolling landscapes, but there’s a growing convergence as industrial developers search for available land on which to build. Up against tight market conditions, along with increased values for land […]
This article was originally published in August 2020. There is no doubt that California is in a big fiscal hole. It relies heavily on income taxes from wealthy taxpayers making tax receipts volatile. Even before the covid crisis struck, commentators were predicting problems for the state which has some of the highest taxes in the […]
The state of Massachusetts has now entered Phase III Step 2 of a reopening, which means all sorts of amazing nonsense cobbled together by people with power who imagine that their high-end credentials grant them the intelligence to outsmart a virus. Not that many citizens of the state really believe this is true but they […]
Nicholas Kristof is elated. Of course, there lies the problem with elation found in the overly emotional. It’s not always grounded in reality. To see why, consider what has the New York Times columnist overjoyed. It’s the $1.9tn so-called ‘American Rescue Plan’ that President Biden has signed into law. It seems Kristof thinks “this time is different”. […]
During the early 20th century, ‘natural’ ice was in decline. ‘Artificial’ or ‘manufactured’ ice was taking its place. Men continued to carve ice out of ponds and lakes during the winter, for storage in great ice warehouses to meet demand during summer. Increasingly, however, other men made ice on demand through a process of manipulating […]
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the markets have been a little volatile in 2021. Or have they been volatile for the last 12 months? Maybe even longer than that? It’s getting difficult to say, when this seems to be the new norm. Take Tuesday 23 February. Here’s what Morningstar wrote about it at […]
Private real estate partnerships tend to outperform institutional real estate investments by a significant margin for several reasons. First, they include a greater proportion of higher risk investments and value-add opportunities while institutional investors mostly buy seasoned and highly occupied properties with less upside. Second, the private investors use more leverage while institutional investors often […]
For decades, those of us sceptical of our central banks’ monetary experiments have tried to punish them for their excesses – rein them in, have them follow a stated rule, or at least provide a way for us critics to opt out of their system. Immunize ourselves from whatever havoc they’re wreaking. Projects have come […]
Housing permits, considered a leading indicator for future construction activity and the broader economy, surged to a 15-year high in January. The jump was supported by increases in the dominant single-family category and the multifamily category. Total housing starts did fall for the month, but the drop comes on the heels of a sharp gain […]
A physical market cycle analysis of four property typesacross 54 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for 4Q2020. GDP ended 2020 at a negative -3.5% annual growth rate, after the largest decline (2Q20) and bounce-back (3Q20) in history. Covid revenue growth, while covid ‘have-not’ firms continued to struggle and downsize, close or go bankrupt. Government stimulus was […]
