Articles
Traditional real estate investment analysis often emphasizes population and household growth as primary indicators to gauge the demand for multifamily units in a given market. However, Rick Scarola, a UF Bergstrom Real Estate Center advisory board member, introduces a compelling alternative metric that leverages employment data to gauge market health. Scarola, a graduate of UF’s [...]
Long ago, Mark Twain supposedly said, “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.” The witticism seems ever more apt today, particularly in Florida, where the state’s strong population growth and competition for land is drawing increased attention from academics, public officials and landowners. Researchers at the University of Florida’s Center for Landscape Conservation Planning inventoried [...]
Ram Realty Advisors has entered the final stages of a $135 million project to reimagine a more than 50-year-old shopping mall in the heart of Chapel Hill, N.C. Begun in 2018, the extensive redevelopment has turned the mall inside-out by tearing down a third of the space and creating an open-air shopping center with 350,000 [...]
Florida consumers are more optimistic about the economy, according to the latest survey from the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR). Consumer sentiment among Floridians rose for the fourth consecutive month in September to 78.3 points, up 1.6 points from a revised figure of 76.7 in August (Figure 1). The numbers [...]
-17.2% Price impact of climate risk on commercial real estate. Offices located near properties damaged by Hurricane Sandy saw a price penalty of 17.2% in the post-Sandy years 2012-2018 compared with similar unaffected ones without damaged properties nearby. The price effect persisted for four years post-Sandy. The price penalty was primarily driven by a decline [...]
A growing demand for IT infrastructure to support cloud computing and artificial intelligence is driving demand for data centers. Growth 19% Rents for hyperscale tech tenants in North America rose 19% in the first half of 2024 compared with a year earlier. $27.2B U.S. construction spending on data centers increased 69% to $27.2 billion in [...]
Nearly a million Florida condo owners face an important deadline at the end of the year. That’s when a law passed in 2022 requires most Florida condo associations to submit inspection reports for their buildings and to collect money from owners to pay for any needed repairs. Condo owners are reporting that new condominium rules [...]
It is difficult to summarize market expectations over the past few quarters, based on our quarterly UF Bergstrom Real Estate Center outlook survey. Perhaps our best description is one of searching for direction. Some responses suggest that a trend is forming but others shift back and forth every quarter. We will start with one of [...]
The Alfred A. Ring Distinguished Speaker Series brings real estate leaders to campus. Dirk Aulabaugh spoke Oct. 3 about lessons he has learned during his career at Green Street Advisors, where he is executive vice president and global head of advisory services. Aulabaugh and his Green Street colleagues advise publicly traded and private real estate [...]
The stiffest headwind most boaters face these days isn’t from a storm. It’s finding a place to tie up. Slips at marinas are so hard to find that Florida boat and yacht brokers advise clients not to buy a watercraft until they have first found somewhere to store it. “There’s just too many boats and [...]
New York City’s Green Energy Local Law 97 (LL97) is a significant component of the Climate Mobilization Act passed by the New York City Council in 2019. The New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability presents this law as “one of the most ambitious plans for reducing emissions in the nation.” One of [...]
During times of market uncertainty — such as a financial crisis, pandemic or spike in interest rates — the illiquid nature of private equity real estate (PERE) leads to questionable valuations. Appraisals rely on recent transactions of comparable properties to estimate the most probable selling price for a property. But commercial property transactions typically drop [...]
A simplified measure of housing affordability is the ratio of median household (HH) income over income needed to own a median-valued home. This is a gauge of broad-based affordability that can help determine if a market is balanced. Using the input choices shown in Figure 1 yields a current index of 1.07 for Florida indicating [...]
There is no question that debt markets face some challenges and current maturities are elevated by any standard. In February, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported 20% of the outstanding $4.7 trillion in U.S. commercial mortgages held by lenders and investors will mature in 2024. If commercial mortgages range from one to 10 years maturity, then [...]
Florida consumers are not pleased with the economy these days, but at least they’re more upbeat than a year ago. Survey respondents’ overall sentiment fell two-tenths of a point to 73.1 in May from the previous month (Figure 1), but it’s an improvement from a year ago when it stood at 69.1, according to the [...]