Economy, Market & Trends
Despite a still tepid transaction market, commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations increased in the second quarter—up 66 percent compared to a year ago, and up 48 percent from the first quarter of 2025, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. But what is the outlook for access to debt and equity capital in the second half of the year? Apart from interest rates, where are the biggest pain points in the market for commercial real estate financing?
President Donald Trump has said that his administration is working to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and end the government-controlled conservatorship of the two that has been in place since the 2008 housing crash. The plan being floated involves taking the two entities public while retaining key U.S. government guarantees to backstop loans.
Documenting the legacy and contributions of African Americans both now and in the past in building the United States as it is known today.
Companies including Macy’s, Nordstrom, Kohl’s, and IKEA are rolling out small-format stores around the country, often in suburban areas, as they try other ways to connect with their customers.
A report released by Philadelphia’s Center City District (CCD) in October 2023 tracks the recovery of twenty-six of the largest downtowns in the United States, exploring four key variables that impact recovery.
Great uncertainty remains about how companies and their employees will use office buildings in the future. To examine this important topic, ULI and The Instant Group partnered on a research project in Spring 2023 to assess how changing occupier behavior and broader macrotrends are influencing demand for workspace.
ULI Boston/New England and other local partners of the CRE/DEI Collaborative—Builders of Color Coalition, CoreNet New England, CREW Boston, NAIOP Massachusetts, and all five divisions of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board as well as the Real Estate Executive Council (the national trade association for commercial real estate professionals of color)—recently gathered for the annual Boston CRE Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Summit to continue to share insights and strategies on how to advance DEI within commercial real estate meaningfully.
China’s attempts over the last three years to deflate its debt-ridden real estate bubble have had proportionately dire economic consequences, said panelists at the 2023 ULI Fall Meeting in Los Angeles.
Mariana Mazzucato, an Italian-American/British economist and academic, and author of The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies, says that the time has come for businesses and governments to take a new approach. To that end, according to Mazzucato, we must embrace taking risks as well as living with the uncertainty that “underpins all the collective investments” needed to handle crises in a proactive manner.
The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach are the biggest such facilities in the United States. Together, the two make up the San Pedro Bay Port Complex. The current forecast for cargo indicates the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex will be handling nearly double the current amount by 2040. But rising emissions also need to be addressed.
Economic and workplace upheaval from the COVID-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on urban causing lasting changes that present a major challenge to the commercial real estate industry. But the crisis also created an opportunity for aging single-use business districts to reinvent themselves as mixed-use neighborhoods, according to panelists at ULI’s Fall Meeting in Los Angeles. The panel was moderated by Diane Hoskins, ULI global chair and co-CEO of global design firm Gensler co-CEO.
“Higher and slower for longer” is one of the major trends highlighted in the newly released Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2024 report.
Experts speak about near-term prospects for development, challenges, and opportunities of obtaining financing in the current economic climate, strategies for balancing the mix of uses, ways mixed-use developments can better support local businesses, and other related trends.
An analysis of hundreds of cities indicates that trips to CBDs in large cities (say, ones above 1.5 million residents) have plateaued around 60 percent of their pre-pandemic levels; smaller towns (for example, ones with fewer than 150,000 residents), in contrast, have fully bounced back.
Savills chairman and CEO demonstrates the interdependence of driving revenue and DEI
A few years ago, veteran multifamily real estate developer and longtime ULI member Preston Butcher was on a street in Mountain View, California, when an unusual sort of housing complex caught his attention. LifeMoves Mountain View was something different, consisting of 100 small, boxy, modular dwellings that provide separate units for single adults, couples, and families experiencing homelessness, as well as support services and case management designed to help the residents eventually regain stability in their lives.
Developers, nonprofits, and advocates for homeless services believe that now is an ideal time to raise awareness of Title V.
Property owners received new protection for their equity from a unanimous Supreme Court decision in the Tyler v. Hennepin County case in May. The decision affirms that owners must be reimbursed for any remaining equity after a property seizure to pay tax debts. The decision is likely to trigger new legislation in numerous states.
Artificial Intelligence, or the general ability of computers to emulate human thought and learning processes and, ultimately, to perform tasks in real-world environments, has grown and evolved significantly in recent years. It’s an empirical fact: in 2022, the global AI market swelled to $136.55 billion, with projections hinting at a surge of $1.8 trillion to $2.6 trillion within the next 10 years.
Many Americans are considered severely rent-burdened, as they spend more than 50 percent of their earnings on housing. For people with disabilities and the elderly, there is a triple whammy—prices are soaring, their incomes are not keeping pace, and only a fraction of housing is built to accommodate those with limited mobility.
“Knot Charleston,” the development plan that earned top honors in this year’s ULI Hines Student Competition for the Americas region, was the product of extensive research, thoughtful design, and close collaboration among the winning team of five Harvard University graduate students.
Any native Angeleno who has walked even a few blocks Downtown can attest to the state of our sidewalks. If we do not invest in the public realm—in our streets, sidewalks, plazas, and parks—then we leave on the table the vital seeds of who it is we can become as a people and as a city.
University of Southern California is one of numerous U.S. colleges and universities that are expanding their presence in cities, sometimes far from their main campuses.
Climate Risk Is Financial Risk: The Ever-Evolving Landscape of Climate-Related Financial Disclosures
In 2021, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation—initially responsible for financial accounting standards—established the International Sustainability Standards Board, with the goal of developing universal, global sustainability disclosure rules. These new rules were finally published in June 2023, and go into effect in January 2024.
At the 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto, the Emerging Trends in Real Estate® session, hosted by the Institute’s University Connections program, shed light on younger generation’s perceptions of suburbs and the shifting preferences of students when it comes to choosing where to live and work post-graduation.
ULI visiting fellow Yvonne Yeung, who authored Building 15-Minute Communities: A Leadership Guide, recently appeared on the Talking Headways podcast. She chatted about how the guide can help create good development that reduces the need to drive, and supports climate emissions reduction goals.
ULI Indiana is the latest addition to the global cohort of ULI national and district councils participating in ULI’s Art in Place program. Working both individually and as a group, each council aims to connect artists, developers, and community voices to drive more inclusive and participatory real estate outcomes.
Attendees of the 2023 ULI Fall Meeting in Los Angeles will have the chance to visit 888 Douglas, a former aerospace research and manufacturing facility in El Segundo that has recently been repurposed into a creative office campus.
An upcoming ULI report highlights key steps that developers and asset managers can take to mitigate environmental impacts and enhance health through materials.
New U.S. home sales among the 50 top-selling master-planned communities increased by 7 percent compared with the pace set by the top communities in the first half of 2022
