Multifamily building leads US housing starts higher in January
From TRD NYC: A 19.7 percent increase in residential rental and condominium starts lead to a 9.7 percent nationwide increase in housing starts from December to January, according to the Department of Commerce. Single-family home construction rose by 3.7 percent. January’s increase to 1.33 million starts followed December’s sharp drop of 8.2 percent. Home prices remain strong due to a supply shortage, with the Standard and Poor’s CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home sale price index finding a 6.2 percent rise between November 2016 and November 2017. [TRD]
Mortgage rates hit highest level since 2014
Mortgage rates have risen for seven consecutive weeks, pushing 30-year mortgages to their highest rate since April 2014, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey found. The rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages ended the week at 4.4 percent, which is up from 4.38 percent from the week before and 4.16 percent at the same time last year, HousingWire reported. “Mortgage rates have followed U.S. Treasury’s higher in anticipation of higher rates of inflation and further monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve,” said Len Kiefer, Freddie Mac deputy chief economist. [HousingWire]
Taking on Airbnb, hotelier joins investors in short-term rental company
San Francisco-based AJJK Inc., which works with developers who set aside blocks of apartments for short-term rentals, got a $15.5 million in funding from an investment group that includes hotelier Barry Sternlicht, Fifth Wall Ventures and New Enterprise Associates, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, which will be renamed Lyric, is attempting to compete with Airbnb’s “Friendly Buildings Program” by offering an amenity-filled luxury option. Airbnb has 13,000 units listed in its program, while Lyric is aiming to have 1,000 units by the end of the year. [TRD]
Bixby Land Company and AXA Investment Managers putting $400M into the US industrial market
A joint venture between Bixby Land Company and AXA Investment Managers will acquire up to $400 million in industrial properties across five states in the next three years. Led by Bixby’s Mike Severson, the group will look for properties in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington that range from $10 million to $40 million in value. [TRD]
Rapidly expanding WeWork predicts more than $2.3B in revenue
As it has grown to 20 countries and has some 200,000 members, coworking giant WeWork expects to earn more than $2.3 billion in revenues this year, the New York Times reported. After a $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank, WeWork is expanding beyond workspace rentals to co-living buildings and services like gyms and a kindergarten school. [TRD]
MAJOR MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
JPMorgan Chase plans to build massive tower for New York HQ
JPMorgan Chase will keep its headquarters in the same New York City location but will tear down the current 52-floor building and build a new 70-story tower in its place. The new Park Avenue building will give the bank an additional 1 million square feet of office space, the New York Times reported. Built in 1961, the existing tower has been renovated several times. JPMorgan has tried to move out before, trying unsuccessfully to build a new home on Manhattan’s Far West Side in 2014 but abandoning the plans when $1 billion in city subsidies did not come through. [TRD]
A $3.5B redevelopment in Philadelphia begins with a public park
A 20-year project to revitalize 14 acres of underused land near the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia is launching with the construction of a public park. Eventually the Schuylkill Yards project will be a science and technology center, boasting some 2.8 million square feet of office space and one million square feet of lab space. The plans also call for 1.6 million square feet of residential and more than 100,000 square feet of retail. The city hopes proximity to the transit hub, as well as Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, will attract as much as $4.5 billion in additional private investment. [NYT]
Florida Realtors see a surging Miami-area residential market in 2018
The new year kicked off with a flurry of home sales activity in South Florida’s three counties at the start of 2018, with volume and prices trending upward. Miami-Dade County saw a 5.3 percent year-over-year increase in sales volume with 1,820 closings in January and 6.5 percent rise in home prices. In Broward County, the number of residential sales rose 3.67 percent over last year and the median price for a single family home increased 10.8 percent. In Palm Beach County residential sales rose only 1 percent as single-family home sales dropped by 3.8 percent but condo and townhome sales jumped by 7.6 percent. [TRD]
Hard Rock International plans to build hotel and residences in New Orleans
There could soon be a new place to party in New Orleans as Hard Rock International is proposing an hotel and residential tower near the famed French Quarter in the city’s Central Business District. The 18-story tower will have 350 hotel rooms and 62 residential units, as well as 12,000 square feet of event space and a rooftop bar. The hotel is scheduled to open in spring 2019, and the residences could be listed as early as spring this year. [Curbed]
As many as 7K apartments are in the pipeline for downtown Chicago
Downtown Chicago is expecting to have 3,000 new apartments come online in 2018, which will be a relatively down year compared to the 4,350 units added in 2017 and the 4,200 units projected for 2019, according to executives at Integra Realty Resources. Even amid concern about an oversupply, a 31 percent increase in absorption from 2016 to 2017 shows there is still an appetite for downtown rentals, the Chicago Tribune reported. The big driver downtown: the 16,582 new jobs created in 2016 and the 15,883 jobs from 2015. [Chicago Tribune]
PacTen plans condo tower in LA’s Westlake neighborhood
PacTen Partners is planning to build a mixed-use condo building in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. There will be 140 residential units, 9,115 square feet of commercial space and 257 parking spaces, according to designs filed with the city. The PacTen development will join a 37-story residential tower at 1100 Wilshire and Realm Group’s 36-story Bixel Tower in the changing area. [TRD]