As Baby Boomers continue to retire, having a concrete plan ensures businesses will continue to thrive
As the Fed began a series of rate hikes in 2022, the apartment market went from one of frenzied growth and optimism to a market characterized by decline, be it declining sales volume, declining occupancy, or declining values. As we near year’s end, stability and even positive momentum have begun to take hold, and there is good reason to expect them to carry into 2025 with the return of large, open-ended funds and an improved debt environment.
For more than a decade, ULI has partnered with ReConnect Rondo, a community-led effort to repair and restore a once-thriving neighborhood of middle-class Black families in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, Rondo was home to more than 80 percent of the city’s African American population. In the late 1950s and 1960s, however, Rondo was devastated by the construction of I-94. The highway destroyed 700 homes and 300 businesses—totaling $250 million dollars of unrealized home equity.
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The U.S. multifamily market was on fire in 2021 and 2022, a time when rent growth hit record highs due to soaring demand. But the market has since come back down to Earth as fundamentals stabilized. Now, amid ongoing high interest rates, heightened deliveries of supply, and deceleration of job growth, many multifamily investors are exploring different strategies to diversify their portfolios, add revenue, take advantage of opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge.
Best Practices
When the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law a little more than two years ago, it was celebrated by many who work in the real estate industry as a crucial tool for encouraging and offsetting the cost of green buildings. The tax incentives offer a lot of opportunities for owners and developers to cut expenditures, sometimes significantly, in a time when interest rates and the cost of construction remain high. Navigating the various incentives and programs has broadly proved challenging, however, and experts hope to spark more awareness around the benefits of the IRA and how to move past common obstacles.
How seven cities are tackling the future of downtowns
Texas Southern University professor and environmental justice advocate to receive ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development.
Industry Voices
Institute trustee and Foundation governor was a force in Denver real estate
Amblebrook, an innovative retirement community in the historic setting of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was specifically designed to remedy this social disease. It shatters the mold of the conventional 55-plus community.
Spanning 80 acres (32.4 ha) and 1 million square feet (93,000 sq m) of industrial space, The Works is located off Chattahoochee Avenue, a once-quiet industrial corridor on the west side of Atlanta. This pocket of the city—now known as the Upper Westside with a new CID to prove it—has seen explosive growth since plans for The Works were announced in 2017.
Retaining a spiritual identity while serving up a mix of uses to the greater neighborhood
Debra March, the two-time Mayor of Henderson, Nevada’s second-largest city, has been named as the chair of ULI Nevada for a two-year term. March will also speak about her leadership at the 2024 ULI Fall Meeting in Las Vegas.
Urban Land recently spoke to Mayor Carolyn Goodman about the revival of downtown Las Vegas and what has made change possible.
Capital Markets and Finance
A one-two punch is hitting condo owners and associations in Florida, forcing some to sell to cash buyers at massive discounts or risk foreclosure. The setback could have national implications.
Commercial real estate loans totaling almost $1.8 trillion are set to mature before the end of 2026, according to Trepp. One sign of the accompanying stress is the commercial mortgage–backed security (CMBS) special servicing rate, with its latest numbers inching up to 8.2 percent, the highest since June 2021.
In early April 2024, Small Change, an investment crowdfunding platform for real estate development with social impact, and Boston Real Estate Inclusion Fund (BREIF) jointly announced an investment opportunity in a $430 million life sciences building under development by Related Beal. The property—at 22 Drydock Avenue, in Boston’s Seaport District—is slated to be the city’s first life sciences building to achieve LEED Platinum and net-zero carbon emissions.
In May, Barry Sternlicht capped investors’ ability to exit his $10 billion real estate fund—a strategic move to avoid a fire sale of properties at a less-than-ideal time. Sternlicht lowered the limit on monthly withdrawals from Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT). That limit, previously 2 percent, went to 0.33 percent of net asset value (NAV), the value of SREIT’s assets minus its debt.
On Thursday, CREW DC, AAREP DC, and ULI Washington delivered the third and final program in a series intended to demystify valuations and provide practical insights on negotiating equity and debt.
RXR CEO and Chairman Scott Rechler, in a recent ULI members-only webinar with ULI Foundation Chair Faron A. Hill, described the challenges and opportunities ahead as an epic, unavoidable storm. “That hurricane … eventually, it’s going to hit land,” Rechler warned. “The question is when it hits, how hard it hits, and where it hits the hardest.”
Members Only
The final day of the 2024 ULI Asia Pacific summit in Tokyo featured a capital markets panel with leaders from both European and North American funds, who shared their insights into the region’s real estate markets—and how those markets stack up against their global counterparts.
Philanthropy
Institute trustee and Foundation governor was a force in Denver real estate
Thomas W. Toomey, chairman and chief executive officer of UDR Inc., will become the new chair of the ULI Foundation on July 1, 2024. A longtime ULI member and chair of the ULI Global Board of Directors from 2017 to 2019, Toomey brings extensive leadership experience and a deep commitment to philanthropic support for ULI’s mission.
Gift extends Stacks’ long history of leadership in ULI, philanthropic support for community transformation, education, and health care