- Wall Street’s Big Landlords Are So Hungry for Houses, They’re Building Them “Millennials aren’t the only ones having a hard time finding houses to buy. So is Wall Street. A shortage of houses in the entry-level price range where first-time buyers and big rental-home companies both shop is prompting some institutional landlords to start building new ones themselves. These companies are racing to meet demand for rental homes from a wave of young families too saddled with student debt to buy, as well as from investors wagering that the suburban renter class that swelled after last decade’s housing crash is here to stay.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)
- Two-Year Yields Dips Below Key Fed Rate for First Time Since 2008 “The U.S. two-year Treasury note yield US2YT=RR briefly dropped below 2.4 percent on Thursday afternoon, reaching parity with the federal funds effective rate for the first time since 2008. The fed funds effective rate, currently set at 2.4 percent, is the Federal Reserve’s key policy rate. The market move suggests investors believe the U.S. central bank will not be able to continue to tighten monetary policy as its forecast suggests, after having lifted benchmark interest rates four times in 2018.” (Reuters)
- Hudson’s Bay Corp., Owner of Saks, Closer to Going Private “Saks Fifth Avenue owner Hudson’s Bay Co. is one step closer to becoming a privately held company. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is cashing out its position, selling its 18 million shares to the company’s executive chairman, Richard Baker. ‘I am very pleased to increase my significant ownership in HBC and further demonstrate my commitment to the company,’ Baker said. The 170 million Canadian dollar ($126 million) deal at C$9.45 ($7.01) a share makes Baker and his investment partners the largest shareholders, with a 70 percent stake in Hudson’s Bay.” (New York Post)
- Hospitals See Opportunity in Bringing Care Facilities to Patients “Hospital for Special Surgery, the oldest orthopedic hospital in the U.S., is multiplying rapidly. In the coming year, it will open two locations on Manhattan’s West Side, including a sports-medicine focused office in Hudson Yards and a larger outpatient facility in the Columbus Circle area. In addition, outposts and collaborations are in development for locations in Midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, Palm Beach, Calif., and Aspen, Colo. The expansion strategy is designed to deliver care closer to where people live and work, said Louis A. Shapiro, president and chief executive for Hospital for Special Surgery.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)
- What’s Coming in New York Real Estate in 2019 “More than 20,000 new apartments in New York, both for sale and for rent, will open their doors this year — and likely just a fraction will find residents by year end. The affordable ones, of course, will attract thousands of applicants, but the bulk of the new units — in gleaming towers, many of them conceived at the height of the last housing boom — will enter a saturated market, where buyers and renters have ample choice and little incentive to rush. At the current rate of sales, it will take more than six years to sell all of the new development in Manhattan alone, which totals almost 8,000 units, said Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants.” (The New York Times)
- Water Tower Place Cracks Down on Teens with 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday Curfew “Water Tower Place will begin enforcing a curfew on Friday in an effort to crack down on disruptive behavior by unsupervised teens. Starting at 4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, trained public safety officers will card visitors at the Magnificent Mile shopping center’s entrances, mall owner Brookfield Properties said Thursday in a news release. Anyone without a valid photo ID confirming they are at least 18 years old won’t be allowed into the mall unless they are accompanied by a parent or other adult who is at least 21 years old, Brookfield said in the release.” (Chicago Tribune)
- Large Coworking Center on the Way Near Plano’s Collin Creek Mall “Another coworking operation has landed in Plano. Dallas-based shared office firm CityCentral has leased a major block of office space on U.S. Highway 75 just north of Bush Turnpike. The 30,616-square-foot coworking center is in the Atrium at Collin Ridge office building at 500 North Central Expressway in Plano. The new shared office space is just north of the $1.5 billion CityLine mixed-use development and is near Collin Creek Mall which.” (Dallas Morning News)
- Hilton CEO Predicts 2019 Will Be “A Reasonably Good Year” for U.S. Economy “Chris Nassetta likes to describe himself as an optimist. And so, despite the gloomy forecasts for the economy and the global markets, the CEO of Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT) is still hopeful. ‘I think 2019 is going to be a reasonably good year for the U.S. economy,’ he tells Fortune, adding that his confidence is based on what he hears from Hilton’s biggest corporate customers. ‘They read the newspapers, they watch the news, and it’s hard for them not to be a little bit more cautious. But they’re still reasonably optimistic. They’re still incrementally hiring more people. They’re still incrementally spending more on cap ex.’” (Fortune)
- Equus Capital Acquires Dallas-Area Office Building “Equus Capital Partners Ltd. has acquired Lincoln Legacy One, a 207,834-square-foot Class A office building situated in the mixed-use park known as Legacy Town Center in Plano, Texas. The property’s previous owner is LIC Asset Management, based in Germany, according to Yardi Matrix. The buyer has closed the acquisition on behalf of Equus Investment Partnership XI LP and plans to rebrand the property as Gateway at Legacy.” (Commercial Property Executive)
- Freddie Mac Issued $73 Billion of Securities Last Year, Marking New High “Freddie Mac notched $72.8 billion in multifamily-backed securities issuance in 2019, setting a yearly record, the agency announced today. That total represents a 7 percent increase over 2017’s $68 billion tally, punctuating a strong performance in a year that ended on a tepid note, under the specter of a nearly inverted yield curve and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve‘s plans for 2019.” (Commercial Observer)
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