More than 2,300 homes at the $10 million-plus price point sold last year among 30 major luxury housing markets in the U.S., a 111.6% increase from 2020.
A reappraisal analysis found a collective reduction of $9.03 billion in value among 719 commercial properties reappraised since the pandemic, all of which are facing some form of distress.
Blackstone has agreed to buy rental apartment owner Preferred Apartment Communities in a $5.8 billion deal. Atlanta-based Preferred Apartment owns over 40 rental apartment properties with about 12,000 units in states including Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee. Preferred Apartment also owns 54 shopping centers anchored by grocery stores. About 70% of the deal’s value is in its rental apartments.
There were 23,204 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in January, which is up 29% from the month prior, 139% from the same time a year ago and the highest rate since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Foreign investment in U.S. commercial property surpassed pre-pandemic levels last year. Pensions, sovereign-wealth funds and other foreign institutions purchased $70.8 billion of U.S. commercial real estate in 2021. That was the highest total since the $94.6 billion invested in 2018, and nearly double the 2020 figure.
The second-largest owner of U.S. marinas is acquiring the third-largest owner, creating a new powerhouse in this niche real-estate business as boat sales surge during the pandemic. Centerbridge Partners LP said it is paying about $400 million for Westrec Marinas, which the investment firm will absorb into its own Suntex Marinas. That will create a combined company with more than 50 marinas that is valued at $2.5 billion, making it the second-highest-valued U.S. marina owner after Safe Harbor Marinas.
Overall, commercial-property sales totaled a record $809 billion in 2021. That was nearly double 2020’s total, and it exceeded the previous record of about $600 billion in 2019.
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, a fund sold in increments as little as $2,500, has raised more than $50 billion since it started five years ago. The fund, known as BREIT, raised an average of more than $2 billion a month, or close to a 70% share of all the money invested in 2021 in nontraded REITs.
An average of only 28% of the workforce last week returned to the office in the 10 major cities monitored by Kastle Systems. That compares with more than 40% the first week in December.