Crowdfunding Fills Construction Lending Gap Left by Banks

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Crowdfunding websites are becoming an important piece of the real estate financing puzzle, especially for apartment developers who need a little extra debt or equity to complete their plans.

“Certainly from where they started, the growth of these crowdfunding portals seems exponential,” says Lee Weaver, senior vice president for Northmarq Capital, a commercial real estate debt and equity provider.

View entire article in National Real Estate Investor

To find out more about commercial mortgage financing options contact Liberty Realty Capital.

Houston’s Largest Retail Development Will be Anchored By…High School Football

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Retail is hot in Houston, but not as hot as high school football. At Valley Ranch Town Center in New Caney, you don’t have to choose. The massive retail development is being built around the recently completed Texan Drive Stadium, transforming the area into the perfect spot for a Friday night.

With the opening of the Grand Parkway at the entrance to the new 1,400-acre master planned community Valley Ranch, work began on the enormous Valley Ranch Town Center. The project is being spearheaded by Signorelli and executed by Arch-Con Construction. The 240-acre development will encompass 1.5M SF of retail next to a 10,000-seat amphitheater alongside New Caney’s recently completed state-of-the-art high school football stadium.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/retail/houstons-largest-retail-development-will-be-anchored-byhigh-school-football-60424?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser

Is CMBS Seeing The Light?

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Thanks to three CMBS conduit deals totaling $2.3B, May has seen one of the most active CMBS issuance weeks in months, possibly signaling a reprieve from CMBS’s slow Q1. CMBS issuances hit $19.1B during Q1, down 30% from the $27B in Q1 ‘15. 2015 saw $101B of CMBS issuances, the first time CMBS broke $100B since 2007—but concerns in the CMBS industry, like greater risk-retention laws, are putting the brakes on hopes of hitting the same number in 2016. The Preserving Access to CRE Capital Act, which still has to get through the Senate, will do a lot to mitigate the new regulations, and “would also provide more flexibility in how CMBS transactions are structured, in order to better accommodate how investors raise capital and divide risk in the capital stack, reducing the rule’s unintended negative impact on CRE liquidity,” Real Estate Roundtable CEO Jeff DeBoer tells GlobeSt.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/capital-markets/is-cmbs-seeing-the-light-60479?rt=17689?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser

Landlords are starting to freak out about the problems in retail

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Retail landlords are on edge. Their tenants in malls across America are reporting awful revenues and earnings, and they’re shuttering stores, and some are going bankrupt. And they’re all getting their clocks cleaned by ecommerce.

Ecommerce sales in the first quarter jumped 15% from a year ago to $86.3 billion, not seasonally adjusted, or $92.8 billion seasonally adjusted, the Census Bureau reported today. They accounted for 7.7% of total retail sales. Over the last four quarters, ecommerce also jumped 15%, to 354.3 billion.

Meanwhile, much of brick-and-mortar retail is stuck in a quagmire. Total retail sales inched up 3.3% year-over-year. A third of that “growth” was inflation as measured by CPI. Another third was the impact of ecommerce.

This chart shows quarterly ecommerce sales on a seasonally adjusted basis. It’s an impressive trend:

Read entire article here in Business Insider

SoCal Facing Possible Electricity Shortage This Summer

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Remember the brownouts of 2001? It could happen again, according to Steve Berberich, chief executive of California Independent System Operator (ISO), the state’s grid manager. He told the San Diego Union-Tribune that power plants are expecting a shortage of natural gas this summer, particularly during hot days when gas-fueled power plants need to meet peak demand. Berberich explained this potential shortage is due to Southern California Gas (SCG) taking the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility offline after one of the company’s 115 wells leaked, forcing thousands of residents in nearby Porter Ranch to flee their homes. Pictured above are equipment and machinery at Southern California Gas Co’s SS25 natural gas well near Porter Ranch, which is part of the Aliso Canyon facility, where a leak was discovered Oct. 23, 2015. He says the ISO has moved quickly to put new mechanisms in place to reduce the impact of gas curtailments on the reliability of electricity, but urged SoCal residents to respond to calls for energy conservation on days “we call a Flex Alert.”

Read entire article at Bisnow.com.

To see more information about commercial real estate financing contact Liberty Realty Capital.

 

The Amazon Effect: Warehouse Rents Shot Up In 2015

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The e-commerce boom is pushing up demand for US warehouse space, leading to rent growth in the sector. Rents for prime US warehouse space rose 9.9% in 2015 compared to just 2.8% worldwide, according to CBRE, as retailers and distributors grabbed facilities near import hubs and population centers. Six US markets were in the top nine worldwide for rent growth, with Oakland seeing the fastest spike, at 29.8% year-over-year—almost twice the rate of the white-hot northern NJ market, the Wall Street Journal reports. CBRE’s head of Americas industrial and logistics research, David Egan, says new construction can’t keep up with the demand boom fueled by e-commerce, and he expects the supply gap to continue, pushing rents in top markets up another 6%. “There are huge premiums being placed right now on being close to the consumer,” David tells the Wall Street Journal. “Speed of service, speed of delivery, is a critical component of why people choose to buy from one retailer over another.”

Read entire article at Bisnow.com