Ongoing uncertainty about the timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike and its impact on REITs has kept potential IPOs on the sidelines. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service issued regulations in June that clamped down on tax-free REIT spin-offs that were a significant source of growth for specialty REITs. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.

Many observers are wondering how Cuba and its economy will react to the opening of relations with the United States, and Richard E. Feinberg, a senior fellow in the Latin America initiative at the Brookings Institution, explores the question in his book Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy.

Brick-and-mortar stores will benefit from holiday spending, but robust growth is not expected at those outlets. Instead, warehouses and call centers will be bigger beneficiaries of holiday spending this year, with the recent RetailNext forecast calling for a 14.9 percent growth in online sales. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.

According to analysis by Morningstar Credit Ratings, 302 properties, with an allocated property balance of $1.1 billion, may be at elevated risk because of major flooding in Louisiana last month.

Journalist Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of 14 books. In Door to Doorhe takes on another complex, resource-intensive topic: the mammoth transportation systems that make it possible (and often frighteningly impossible) for Americans to drive 344 million miles in an hour and move $55 billion worth of goods per day.

Construction during the current real estate cycle has generally stayed below historical trends, but deliveries have increased as the cycle matures. For example, real estate investment trusts like Avalon Bay and Equity Residential with significant investments in apartment markets like Manhattan and San Francisco have already cut their revenue forecasts several times this year. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.

The potential and limitations associated with inclusionary zoning, a tool used by a growing number of U.S. cities to encourage or require workforce housing development, are explored in a new ULI report, The Economics of Inclusionary Development.

National Public Radio’s podcast Planet Moneyrecently looked at why demolishing a single block of abandoned homes in Baltimore took more than a decade.

The premise of Geoff Manaugh’s A Burglar’s Guide to the Cityis simple; burglars understand cities, and the buildings that constitute them, better than you do. Manaugh has been exploring a dizzying range of theoretical and esoterically vocational perspectives on the city for well over a decade on his invaluable BLDGBLOG.

Prison real estate investment trusts have been volatile during recent weeks in the aftermath of the Bureau of Prisons’ announcement that it would not extend or renew its contracts with private prisons. Declining prison populations also factored into the decision. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.