In a market accustomed to abundant supplies of cheap debt, the real estate landscape in the Asia Pacific region is undergoing a significant transformation following the series of rapid interest rate hikes initiated by the U.S. Federal Reserve since mid-2022, according to the 18th edition of the Emerging Trends in Real Estate® Asia Pacific 2024. In the absence of asset revaluations, far fewer deals are now able to deliver accretive returns, prompting large global investors to retreat to the sidelines as they wait for markets to reset

ULI MEMBER-ONLY CONTENT: According to the latest ULI Real Estate Economic Forecast, investors are expected to buy just $312 billion in commercial real estate in 2023. That’s a fraction of the volume of sales in 2021 and $100 billion less than expected in the spring forecast just six months ago.

Many office property owners are heading for the exits amid weaker demand and looming debt maturities, while opportunistic private equity groups are leaning in to capture what could be once-in-a-generation buying opportunities.

Ten developments from across North America have been selected as winners of the 2023 ULI Americas Awards for Excellence. This year, 68 projects and programs from across the Americas region were submitted for the competition.

In 2020, Mahlon “Sandy” Apgar, a ULI trustee and Julia Morgan Society member, provided an endowment to the ULI Foundation to create the ULI Apgar Thought Leader Award. The award program encourages the sharing of original research and innovative ideas related to the real estate industry. Every two years, a committee chooses a winning article published in Urban Landmagazine and written by a thought leader, awarding a $1,500 honorarium and free registration for the Institute’s Fall or Spring Meeting.

Designers have a critical role to play in addressing the issue of mental health for our veterans by educating ourselves on these best practices and implementing these strategies thoroughly on projects serving this patient population. In this manner, we are advocates for dignity-driven design for veterans returning home.

Throughout his storied career in real estate, housing, and urban development, Sandy Apgar was an advisor to senior industry leaders on strategy and management, a public official tasked with improving housing for military families, and a prolific author on topics such as new towns and public-private partnerships.

Real estate market participants are in the midst of a “Great Reset” when it comes to adjusting views related to pricing, risk, and return expectations in an environment marked by higher interest rates and slower economic growth. The need to align thinking and strategies to fit current market dynamics is one of the key themes in the 2024 Emerging Trends in Real Estateforecast for the United States and Canada.

Cambridge Crossing, a 4.5 million-square-foot (418,063.7 square meters) mixed-use space in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of this year’s recipients of the ULI Americas Awards for Excellence. The roughly 43-acre (17.4 hectares) project, built at the site of an abandoned railyard, has about 2.4 million square feet (223,027 square meters) of residential space, including about 2,700 residential units, and the project had multiple master plans from different developers, dating as far back as 2003.

Hundreds of events are scheduled September 22-27 for Climate Week NYC 2024, an annual event that drives climate action by those at the very top of business and politics, but also by communities, artists, and activists. This year’s theme: It’s Time. The built environment is a part of the dialogue, as are cross-sector issues like circular economy, water, finance, biodiversity, adaptation, health, environmental justice, policy, and more. With more than 600 events to choose from, it’s easy to assemble a perfect, customized itinerary for the week.

The ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate is pleased to announce its two newest board members: Esther An and Collete English Dixon.

On August 14, ULI New York and the Holcim Foundation hosted a sold-out event on “Decarbonization at Scale,” a topic that has never been more critical for the future of the built environment in North America.

ULI recently joined a coalition of real estate associations to conduct the industry’s first global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) survey. The results of the survey were discussed in a January webinar with 92 firms reporting some form of DEI initiative.

The first global benchmark of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) metrics for commercial real estate shows that there is a clear mandate and momentum, with 92 percent of firms adopting programs or initiatives to improve DEI in the workplace. The Global Real Estate DEI Survey is the industry’s first global collection of corporate best practices and employee demographics for commercial real estate.

In October 2020, JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 billion Racial Equity Commitment to help close the racial wealth gap among Black, Hispanic and Latino communities. In the last year, JPMorgan Chase has deployed or committed more than $13 billion of its $30 billion goal largely driven by affordable rental housing preservation and homeownership refinance, which were existing products and processes where the firm took prompt action to do more.