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☆ Venture Firm Fifth Wall Raises Record Real-Estate Startup Fund
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Fifth Wall partners Brendan Wallace and Sarah Liu with others on the roof terrace of the Fifth Wall headquarters in New York City. Fifth Wall Ventures Management LLC raised the largest-ever venture fund focused on real-estate technology companies, the company said, a sign that some major investors are still bullish on property startups despite this year’s surge in interest rates. The $866 million fund, which closed on Friday, will invest in both early- and late-stage startups. Annaly Capital Management Inc., Arbor Realty Trust Inc., CBRE Group Inc., Equity Residential and a number of other major real-estate companies invested in the fund.

☆ WeWork’s Once Robust Cash Reserves Have Dwindled, Raising Chances of Default
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WeWork has been able to cover its losses partly with loans and equity investments from its biggest backer, SoftBank Group. WeWork Inc. is trying to turn a profit before its once formidable cash reserves run out. The Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation have made that harder. Recession fears and tech-industry job cuts are weighing on demand for co-working desks. Meanwhile, money-losing companies such as WeWork are squeezed by higher interest rates, which have made debt harder to come by and the promise of future profit less appealing to investors.

☆ Investors Yank Money From Commercial-Property Funds, Pressuring Real-Estate Values
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Konrad Putzier | Peter Grant | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Some investors in Blackstone’s flagship real-estate fund won’t be able to cash out before next year. Big and small investors are queuing up to pull money out of real-estate funds, the latest sign that the surge in interest rates is threatening to upend the commercial-property sector. Blackstone Inc. last week said it would limit the amount of money investors could withdraw from its $69 billion flagship real-estate fund following a surge in redemption requests. Starwood Capital Group shortly after notified investors that it was also restricting withdrawals in a $14.6 billion fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.

☆ Airbnb Aims to Attract Big Landlords With a Cut of Its Rental Sales
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Airbnb Inc. is launching a listing service for rental apartments with some of the biggest landlords and property managers in the country, a bid to expand its business in multifamily buildings where owners often shun short-term rentals. The new service will feature more than 175 buildings managed by Equity Residential , Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC and 10 other companies, Airbnb said on Wednesday.

☆ Virginia Walmart Employees Slain in Mass Shooting Are Mourned
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

CHESAPEAKE, Va.—Families, friends and fellow workers on Thanksgiving Day were mourning the death of six employees allegedly killed at a Walmart by a night supervisor, the second major mass shooting in America in less than seven days. Police identified five of the dead victims as Lorenzo Gamble, Brian Pendleton, Kellie Pyle, Randall Blevins and Tyneka Johnson. The name of a 16-year-old male victim wasn’t released because he was a minor. All six were Walmart associates, a company spokesman said.

☆ Housing Shortage Reflects the Cheap Cost of Holding Vacant Land
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

For a glimpse at how a skewed property-tax system worsens the housing shortage in America’s biggest cities, take a look at a 6-acre land parcel in Midtown Manhattan. The site, located next to the United Nations headquarters, is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, according to analysts. It is zoned for the construction of around 1,500 apartments in a city that has a shortage of housing and rents near record highs. Yet for the past 17 years, the lot has sat empty, and its owner has paid relatively little in taxes on the property because it doesn’t contain any buildings.

☆ Airbnb Co-Founder’s New Business Is Building Small Homes in Backyards
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Joe Gebbia co-founded Airbnb Inc. as a company that helped people rent out their homes to guests. His new venture is about adding small homes to people’s backyards. The new startup, known as Samara, plans to sell factory-produced studio and one-bedroom units to homeowners. The company is looking to capitalize on laxer laws and rising demand for affordable housing spurred by surging home prices and ballooning rents.

☆ Rising Interest Rates Threaten to Expose Office Buildings’ Inflated Values
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In 2015, Blackstone Inc. bought a 50% stake in this Manhattan office tower at 1330 Avenue of the Americas in a deal valuing the building at $507 million. Cheap debt fueled a decadelong boom in U.S. office values, offsetting the impact of years of rent increases that didn’t keep pace with inflation. Now that the long period of easy credit is over, office-building owners are bracing to see how much less their properties are actually worth.

☆ Timeshare Comes to the Office: Companies Save Money on Space by Alternating Days
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Hybrid work schedules for most companies mean splitting time between remote work and time in the office. For the startup Frontier Talent Inc., it also means rotating through the same office space with another company. Frontier employees head to their San Francisco office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. After two of those days, they pack their laptops, clean up their desks and throw away any trash so their work area will be clean when another company moves in for its turn using the space.

Carlos Castañeda and Genesis Martusciello fled Venezuela in the middle of the previous decade, arriving in Miami with little money and few prospects but in search of a better life. Within a few years, the young couple had access to millions of dollars. They achieved their sudden wealth through what Florida real-estate attorneys call one of the boldest real-estate frauds the U.S. has ever seen.

☆ In the Sunbelt, the Hottest Commodity Is Land
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Konrad Putzier | Photographs Angela Owens The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

His grandfather bought much of it for 10 cents an acre in 1932. Since then, the population of the Tampa metropolitan area has exploded to more than 3 million.

☆ The U.S. Is Running Short of Land for Housing
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Konrad Putzier | Photographs Angela Owens The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In the Sunbelt, the hottest commodity isn’t oil, copper or gold. It is land. And rancher Robert Thomas has plenty of it. Since then, the population of the Tampa metropolitan area has exploded to more than 3 million. The Thomas family’s ranch is now surrounded by communities of single-family homes.

☆ Chinese Firms Flee U.S. Commercial Real-Estate Market After Big Property Bets Sour
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SL Green Realty Corp. recently took over Manhattan office tower 245 Park Avenue from an affiliate of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co.Chinese firms for years were among the most aggressive buyers of U.S. luxury hotels, office towers and other commercial real estate. Now they are running for the exits. Chinese companies have sold a net $23.6 billion of U.S. commercial properties since the start of 2019, according to data provider MSCI Real Assets. That marks a dramatic turnaround. Between 2013 and 2018, Chinese firms were net buyers of nearly $52 billion of U.S. commercial properties, according to MSCI.

☆ Adam Neumann Handing Over Part of Property Holdings to Fund Startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-13 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Adam Neumann, former CEO of WeWork, has bought stakes in thousands of apartments since leaving the company he co-founded. Adam Neumann ’s new rental-apartment startup recently received a $350 million investment from venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. That big check came with an unusual catch. Mr. Neumann, the co-founder and former chief executive of WeWork Inc., agreed to effectively hand over part of his vast real-estate holdings in return for the money, according to people familiar with the matter.

Property ReportThe biggest landlord of the city street renowned for bespoke tailoring wants to demolish two buildings and redevelop the site as a mixed-use complex, relocating several tailors and in some cases requiring them to move off the row altogether.

☆ California Storm Floods Roads, Cuts Power as New Year Arrives
▼ + stars: | 1994-11-05 | by ( Konrad Putzier | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A Pacific storm system drenched parts of California with record-setting rain, leaving roads flooded and tens of thousands of households without power on New Year’s Eve. Downtown San Francisco recorded 5.46 inches of rain Saturday, the city’s second-highest total in more than 170 years, the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office said Sunday morning. The record since the 19th century was 5.54 inches on Nov. 5, 1994. Nearby Oakland had its wettest day on record with 4.75 inches, the office added.

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