As long as lenders keep a tight grip on their wallets, the much-anticipated trend toward smaller houses probably won’t materialize, according to data presented at the NAHB’s recent annual convention.

Once the butt of jokes by late-night comedians, Newark now has building cranes dotting its skyline—proof that the Garden State’s largest city is experiencing something of a renaissance.

People are resuming travel. In some spots hotels are trading at prices that are above where they were in 2007. New York City just experienced record hotel occupancy rates this past May. As long as the market did not get overbuilt, hotels are coming back, says Greg Cory, principal of San Francisco–based Land Use Economics LLC and chairman of ULI’s Recreation Development Council. However, areas that got overbuilt are predicted to take longer to recover.

As cities both large and small transition from manufacturing-based to service-oriented economies, municipal officials are forced to decide whether a site will be prepped for resale to another industrial user or if it should be remediated for residential development and commercial business. Read more to learn what a ULI panel told the city of Indianapolis to do with a well-sited vacant GM property.

It is the way that cities celebrate and showcase assets such as parks, culture and the arts, and safe neighborhoods that will determine the vibrancy of a community. Those communities that build partnerships to shape their response to these changes will be those that become successful 21st-century cities. Learn the three assumptions that successful cities will build on.

The global industrial market is poised for big changes as companies reexamine their supply chain operations, says ULI trustee James J. Curtis III. Labor arbitrage, rising manufacturing costs, and a much greater sensitivity to sustainability are among those factors that will drive the industrial market in the future, he adds. Read what other experts predict for the industrial market going forward.

Les Docks Village is a ground-floor rehabilitation of the Docks, a historic and emblematic structure built in 1857 on the Marseille harbor and purchased by J.P. Morgan in 2007.

The Peterson Companies’ new National Harbor complex development attracts 10 million people each year, but it is likely that few will notice all the measures Peterson has put in place for their protection, which are both well concealed and elaborate.

Congress has thrown its support behind new legislation that aims to fix some of the problems in the condo financing program of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act (H.R. 3700) will loosen some of the more stringent regulatory requirements specific to condo mortgage insurance that were introduced in the wake of the housing finance crisis.

The next era of multifamily real estate will be led by managers that have the ability to produce alpha. The 2010s were defined by a seemingly never-ending bull market. The next cycle will remind investors of the importance of partnering with managers that apply an appropriate risk-reward analysis and have the skill and experience to add value at the real estate level to generate alpha.

ULI Asia Pacific Young Leaders hosted a forum on housing attainability in May with a focus on Australia, China, and Singapore. The event started with a short presentation by Ken Rhee, Senior Director of ULI China and the primary author of the newly released 2023 ULI Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index.

Innovative technology platforms already are helping many owners operate apartment buildings more efficiently and improve services for tenants. But experts say that is just the start of a revolution that could transform the multifamily segment.

Despite ominous national headlines about New York City office, the vacancy rate is at 9.7 precent in the first quarter of 2022, a full 140 basis points above pre-pandemic levels, according to Moody’s. And, on the ground, New York City office landlords like Leslie Himmel, founder and co–managing partner of Himmel + Meringoff Properties, are doubling down on the city.

A combination of passive and active building systems, solar photovoltaics, and building envelope technology drastically reduces building energy use.

ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: Speaking at the 2021 ULI Fall Meeting, panelists discussed recent transactions in the office sector and which segments had performed the best.

The 50 top-selling U.S. master-planned communities (MPCs) during 2018 surpassed their sales totals for the previous year by an average of 5 percent, according to data from RCLCO Real Estate Advisors. The top two communities were both in Florida: the Villages, with 2,134 home sales, is once again the top-selling community in the country, followed by Sarasota, Florida’s Lakewood Ranch.

According to data from Yardi Matrix, the average size of a new U.S. apartment has shrunk 5 percent over the last 10 years, while the average price has risen 28 percent. The average floor plan of a new apartment measures 941 square feet (87.4 sq m), but that is still larger than the overall average of 882 square feet (82 sq m).

A novel condo development incorporates fully robotic parking and direct access to high-end units.

As aging retail continue to evolve, one increasingly popular trend has been to redesign malls as town centers—recalling a time when such commercial districts were the heart and soul of a community. Mall–to–town center retrofits are emerging throughout the nation, especially in suburban communities, where pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use environments are highly attractive to millennials now raising families.

Consumers have kept a steady foot on the gas this year. A record-high 197 million consumers shopped in stores or online over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). The NRF forecasts that holiday sales will grow between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent, with total retail spending in the United States falling between $979.5 billion and $989 billion during November and December. That forecast also is consistent with NRF’s annual U.S. sales growth—between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent—for 2024.

After a quiet first half of 2024, CMBS originations increased 59 percent in Q3 on a year-over-year basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Quarterly Survey.