Ray Lewis gets into the real estate game

While Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens star linebacker, chases down quarterbacks during the NFL playoffs starting this weekend, his new South Florida-based firm is going after real estate deals and plans to expand. RL52 Realty, co-founded by Lewis, opened two new offices in South Florida last year, and it’s already seeking to expand on its model of bringing together real estate buyers and sellers through arts and education. To do that, the firm opened an art gallery with its Fort Lauderdale office. “The gallery is an excellent venue for highly-motivated professionals, including those in the sports and entertainment business, to create opportunities for business transactions,” said Sol Kandel, business development advisor and principal with the firm. [more]

A statewide survey of real estate professionals puts unemployment at the top of a list of stumbling blocks to a robust market recovery. Since unemployed people don’t need office space, don’t shop, don’t pay rent and don’t buy houses, one respondent said, it’s unlikely to mean a serious recovery is in the offing. Reactions from 319 participants in 13 urban regions of the state representing reactions for 15 types of property were largely unified: more vacancies and decreasing rents will hit commercial and residential real estate for some time. The current unemployment rate of 11.8 percent must decline before people can start participating in the market again, said Tim Becker, director of the University of Florida’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies in Gainesville, which conducted the survey. [GlobeSt]