After a long and steady period of robust growth following the Great Financial Crisis in 2008, the U.S. housing market is searching for a new identity. A whirlwind of economic events spurred by fast-changing U.S. monetary policy, war in Ukraine and sharply rising inflation has jolted the housing market. As the supply of houses has [...]

Business sectors use many terms to describe a situation that suddenly gets tough for consumers. It’s a “seller’s market” in real estate and a “bear market” on Wall Street. In the insurance industry, it’s called a “hard market.” But Florida businesses hunting for coverage these days may use even starker terms — like harsh or [...]

For those working in real estate, it can seem as though each state’s housing market operates independently, disconnected from other markets and even the national economy. After all, everyone knows that real estate is a local market, and its three most important features are “location,” “location” and “location.” Today’s housing market seems the perfect example [...]

Completed in the summer of 2022, Odyssey by Solutra in Fort Myers is the first of eight build-to-rent communities financed by Halstatt Real Estate Partners to meet a growing demand for detached rental units. Danville Leadbetter of Naples-based Soltura Development, Halstatt’s partner, said it’s taken some time to learn how to market these small rental [...]

Environmental regulations, societal expectations and political pressures are arguably impacting commercial real estate like never before. The Paris Accord international climate treaty and a 2019 New York law that regulates the energy efficiency of buildings are just two examples of how environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations are increasingly influencing the real estate market. Wall [...]

Florida stands out in many ways. The peninsula has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, the world’s largest amusement park and one of the biggest wetlands anywhere. Also, Florida is the nation’s fastest growing, with about 320,000 people moving to the Sunshine State in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Photo above: [...]

As far as professionals are concerned, real estate agents have had a remarkable history. Despite being a major part of one of the nation’s largest industries, constant economic, legislative, and technological changes, licensed real estate agents have managed to maintain a fairly constant industry structure related to their services. In a day and age when [...]

Despite obstacles, the innovative building material is used in a growing number of projects The father-and-son team Thomas and Keith Kovatch weren’t planning to be pioneers when they decided to construct an office building in Central Florida. Then they received a random email about a seminar on an innovative building technique known as “mass timber,” [...]

Housing affordability has been a growing concern in the United States in recent years, particularly given the spike in mortgage rates and surge in home sales prices in 2022. A worsening housing supply shortage and wage stagnation are commonly cited as among the main factors for the affordability issue. We analyzed the long-term trends in [...]

Marshall Mall could serve as an example of the fate of U.S. shopping malls, which have swung high and low since their heyday. Built in 1980, the mall is the first and only mall in the small town of Marshall, Texas. But in time its original developer faltered, and the mall ended up in foreclosure. [...]

The solution is building more supply. But that is not so simple. The news reports are hard to ignore – and seem to come from all parts of the country. “The United States is facing an affordable housing crisis,” wrote Curbed, an online news site that covers U.S. real estate. “Florida is in the throes [...]

In the early morning of June 24, 2021, the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, suddenly collapsed, killing 98 people. The failure of the 40-year-old condo building immediately generated worldwide attention — and raised questions about the safety of numerous high-rise condo buildings in South Florida and throughout the state. What caused the sudden [...]

Florida has emerged as a surprising battleground over rent control this year as local governments look for ways to manage escalating housing costs. Elected officials in a handful of cities and counties across the Sunshine State have seriously debated the controversial issue in response to increasing demands from residents who face some of the steepest [...]

You don’t need to be an economist to know that prices for just about everything have soared in the past year. The consumer price index for all urban consumers increased 8.3% in the year ending in August, nearly its highest level in the last 40 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Interestingly, [...]

It was not that long ago that commercial real estate professionals would draw circles on road maps to help pinpoint the best place to locate a business. These concentric rings might show the one- to five-mile radius from a given piece of property — and served as a starting place to help clients select a [...]