Features

LOS ANGELES — A recent CBRE report found that online sales during the course of the Thanksgiving weekend grew 17 percent over 2013, with an average order size of $124. Similarly, on Cyber Monday, sales grew 8.5 percent year-over-year. (Cyber Monday fell on Dec. 1 this year.) “Cyber Monday is no longer a one-day event,” says Spencer Levy, head of research for CBRE Americas. “Consumers are now spreading their holiday shopping over ‘Cyber Week’, taking advantage of online sales that began before Black Friday. Continued strength in online shopping is a trend which bodes well for the U.S. industrial real estate market, as e-commerce companies and omnichannel retailers will need more space to warehouse and process online shipments.” During the five-day “Cyber Week” period, online sales were up 12.6 percent nationwide, indicating that consumers are spreading their shopping activity over the course of the holiday season rather than just focusing on a single day. Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers seemed to reap the benefits of adopting omnichannel strategies, the report points out. On Cyber Monday, department stores recorded 17.9 percent year-over-year growth in online sales nationwide, while the biggest retailer in the U.S., Walmart, reported its best Cyber Monday ever. In response …

The combination of continued solid employment growth and low inflation/interest rates has created a “sweet spot” for commercial real estate, concludes Robert Bach, director of research for the Americas at brokerage firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF). “The economy is strong enough to generate sustained leasing activity for all property types, but still has enough slack to permit the Federal Reserve to maintain low interest rates — a key factor supporting the surge of investor demand for commercial real estate assets,” according to Bach. The veteran economist’s insights were outlined in a research note following last Friday’s news that employers added 214,000 net new payroll jobs in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The increase, which marked the ninth consecutive monthly gain above 200,000 new jobs, was in line with economists’ expectations. Additionally, the BLS revised the August and September totals higher by a combined 31,000 jobs. The average monthly increase year-to-date through October is 229,000, up from 194,000 in 2013. The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a point to 5.8 percent, its lowest level since July 2008, but the tightening is not translating into higher wages, according to Bach. “Wage growth remains slow — a negative …

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Third-quarter 2014 commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations were 16 percent higher than during the same period last year and 18 percent higher than the second quarter of 2014, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations. “Commercial real estate borrowing and lending continued at a strong clip in the third quarter,” says Jamie Woodwell, MBA’s vice president of commercial real estate research. “Low [interest] rates coupled with growth in property incomes, property values and sales transactions have pushed year-to-date commercial and multifamily mortgage originations five percent above last year’s pace.” Industrial, Multifamily Sectors Lead the Way The 16 percent overall increase in commercial/multifamily lending volumes, when compared to the third quarter of 2013, was driven by an increase in originations for industrial and multifamily properties. The increase included a 41 percent increase in the dollar volume of loans for multifamily properties, a 22 percent increase for industrial properties, an 11 percent increase for office properties, an 11 percent increase for retail properties, a 4 percent increase in hotel property loans, and a 43 percent decrease in healthcare property loans. Among investor types, the dollar volume of loans originated for government-sponsored …

WASHINGTON — An Energy Star score for multifamily properties is now available to enable owners and operators of multifamily properties — with 20 or more units — to quantify energy performance. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star score gives property owners and managers the ability to quantify and compare the energy performance of their multifamily housing properties against similar properties, and provides information to help prioritize energy efficiency efforts to ultimately save money. Energy performance has a major impact on the quality and affordability of multifamily housing, according to Chrissa Pagitsas,
director of Fannie Mae Multifamily Green Initiative. “Rising utility rates create financial risk for owners of multifamily properties and reduce affordability for tenants,” notes Pagitsas. “Unfortunately, there has been very little information and key metrics available to the multifamily industry regarding the energy performance of multifamily properties, until now.” Since 2011, Washington-based Fannie Mae has been the primary sponsor of EPA’s development of this score by sharing expertise and collecting the data necessary to develop the score with its Multifamily Energy and Water Market Research Survey. Numerous multifamily owners, property managers, and consultants provided data for the survey. “Fannie Mae and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are working …