As more companies offer their employees remote and flexible working arrangements, local and multi-market tech talent employers have an opportunity to grow their tech talent teams and develop a more diverse and talented workforce by expanding into untapped markets.

While established tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto maintain a steady inflow of tech workers, the rise of remote and flexible work options will likely present unique opportunities in smaller markets throughout the U.S. and Canada.

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Commercial property asset prices continued to rise in June, led by the apartment sector, Real Capital Analytics reports.
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The RCA National All-Property Index grew 9.8% in June compared with a year ago, the fastest rate since 2015, and was up 0.8% from May.

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Despite the widespread availability of vaccines, the coronavirus is roaring back in the U.S., with case counts nearly doubling over the past two weeks. If the trend continues, the assumed Labor Day signpost for a mass return to offices is in jeopardy.

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Despite reports that Google engineers believe they are as productive working at home as they used to be in the office, the tech giant is sticking with plans to bring most of its employees back to their offices much of the time.

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Real estate investors looking for attractive returns along with added risk protection are finding it in the middle of the capital stack. Capital is pouring into the preferred equity space, resulting in a highly competitive market that is putting pressure on returns and forcing investors to work harder to find good deals.
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Interest in preferred equity deals isn’t entirely new, but momentum has picked up of late. “It started to get big five to six years ago and it has blown up even more in the last year or two,” says Noah Miller, vice president at Gelt Financial, a private real estate investment firm based in Delray Beach, Fla. Gelt Financial invests at different points in the real estate capital stack, including preferred equity, mezzanine and bridge loans and senior mortgages.

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Cell towers are so much a part of the landscape that few people pay them any attention, but these workhorses of the digital age support a niche real estate play that has done well during the coronavirus pandemic and is expected to do well post-pandemic.

A handful of REITs specialize in infrastructure, which largely (but not completely) means cell towers and other structures critical to the transmission of information. Like many other businesses, they suffered from the sudden shock posed by the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. Unlike many businesses, their bounce back was only a matter of months.

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The use of mass timber in U.S. commercial real estate has been growing rapidly over the past six years, spurred by official recognition of its safety and strength. Corporate leaders have also come under increasing pressure to make environmentally friendly business choices, leading to an uptick in new mass timber developments, which have a lower impact on the environment than using concrete or steel.
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That momentum took a hit during the coronavirus pandemic as projects were postponed or delayed. But industry experts say enthusiasm for mass timber has endured: More than 1,100 projects are in the pipeline, and recent building code changes mean that specialty wood products can be used to build high-rise developments for the first time.

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The recent blackouts and power shortages throughout California and Texas are not scaring away data center operators.

Their facilities may require immense amounts of power, but industry leaders told Bisnow this week that the energy crisis could be a big opportunity for data center players.

While conventional wisdom dictates that grid instability should create havoc for data centers, major operators in both California and Texas have avoided significant service interruptions thanks to robust backup power systems at most facilities.

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Economic activity has roared back to life in 2021 and one especially busy area of late has been the world of REIT mergers. According to research from JLL, REIT merger and activity year-to-date had reached $70 billion as of early June, and that robust deal flow is expected to continue throughout the second half of the year.

“The obvious observation, besides the headline number of $70 billion and growing, is that it is a pretty diverse mix of asset classes that are represented,” says Sheheryar Hafeez, a managing director in the New York office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. Major deals have been announced in industrial, retail, net lease and hotels to date.

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Amazon warehouses have become a real estate asset class all on their own, such has been the speed and scale of the company’s growth. Two recent research reports put some hard numbers behind this trend. 

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