Green Building Outpaces Overall Construction Growth

The green building sector is outpacing overall construction growth in the US and will account for more than 2.3 million American jobs this year, according to a US Green Building Council study from Booz Allen Hamilton.

The 2015 Green Building Economic Impact Study, released today by USGBC and prepared by Booz Allen, finds the green building industry contributes more than $134.3 billion in labor income to working Americans. The study also found that green construction’s growth rate is rapidly outpacing that of conventional construction and will continue to rise.

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Commercial Property Prices Continue to Rise

Prices on commercial real estate assets continued to move upward in July, the most recent period for which data is available, according to Moody’s/RCA Commercial Property Price Indices (CPPI). The all-property composite index rose 0.7 percent during the month, and 2.8 percent during the three-month period leading to July 31.

Prices on retail assets rose the most in July, by 1.7 percent, followed by prices on apartment buildings, which rose by 1.0 percent. Prices on office properties moved up 0.2 percent.

Read entire article at National Real Estate Investor

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CMBS Pricing Is Uncertain Amid “Skittish” Market

Anyone watching the CMBS investment market in recent weeks has seen some warning signs. Spreads have widened, while ratings agencies such as Moody’s have expressed concerns about “deteriorating credit quality.”

“There is some definite nervousness in the market, and it is not clear yet which way the market will move,” says Manus Clancy, senior managing director at research firm Trepp. CMBS spreads started to widen in June, including one big move that occurred in late June/early July and a second big move in early August as it relates to new issuance.

“We believe that has more to do with the general skittishness of the global economy, the slowing growth in China and the potential unintended consequences of a rate hike from the Fed than it has to do with the credit quality of CMBS per se,” says Clancy.

Read entire article here in National Real Estate Investor

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Baby Boomers, Less Homeownership Supports Apartment Markets

The apartment business is depending on strong demographics and stronger demand to keep absorbing the hundreds of thousands of apartments still planned to open this year.

“In 2014, apartment rents grew 4.6 percent despite a fairly good amount of supply,” says K.C. Sanjay, senior economist for data firm Axiometrics. “The reason for this is the job growth, right above 200,000 new jobs a month, and rental household formation.”

That’s sounds like a solid foundation for strong demand for apartments. But a close look at the demographics shows a few odds twists and turns in the data. The growing number of U.S. households turns out to be largely due to an aging population, not young Millennials with new jobs, according to a recent report by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley. Also, an unusually low rate of homeownership is driving people to rental housing—but that can’t last forever, reports Axiometrics.

Read entire article here in National Real Estate Investor

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Marijuana Producers Gobble Up Warehouse Space in Denver Area

Marijuana plants grow underneath water-cooled lights in the Pink House Blooms grow house in Denver, Colo.

Steve Badgley has been hunting for a larger warehouse in the Denver area for more than a year. But his construction-supply business keeps getting squeezed out by a new entrant into the real-estate market: the marijuana industry.

Since voters in Colorado and Washington legalized recreational use of the drug in 2012, growers and distributors have gobbled up most of the available warehouse space in the Denver area, a major logistics hub for companies moving goods between the Midwest and the West Coast.

Read entire article here in Wall Street Journal.

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Donald Trump Wants to Raise His Own Taxes, and Here’s How He Could Do It

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Billionaire Donald Trump, who built his fortune in real estate, told Bloomberg Politics this week that he wants to raise his own taxes. One way to do it is a bipartisan proposal that would blow up one of the real estate industry’s favorite tax breaks.

The break, known as the like-kind exchange or “1031” for the tax code section it comes from, lets real estate owners sell one piece of property and buy a new one soon afterward without paying any capital gains taxes on the profits from the sale. The result is an ever-increasing pile of deferred capital gains, taxed only whenever there is a final sale or, better yet, never taxed as income at all upon death.

“It was originally meant to really cover a narrow set of transactions,” said Lily Batchelder, a former aide to Senate Finance Committee Democrats and to President Barack Obama. “It’s grown into this huge loophole, especially for wealthy real estate investors.”

Read the entire article here in Bloomberg Politics

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