Market Reports

Planta-Queen-Manhattan

By Taylor Williams The fervent desire that many Americans have to make up for lost eating, drinking and socializing time has New York City’s food and beverage (F&B) market roaring back to life, prompting tenants to revisit growth plans, landlords to aggressively market their spaces and the brokers who represent the two sides to sharpen their pencils.  In mid-August, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that residents wishing to eat or drink inside a restaurant or bar would have to show proof of receipt of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Yet after two months of seeing this policy enforced, local brokers say the mandate has had a minimally adverse impact on business. Consequently, leasing activity, which began rebounding a year ago, is now accelerating in the F&B space. According to data from CBRE, F&B deals accounted for 30 percent of all new retail leases executed in New York City between March 2020 and August 2021. The company’s research team also identified 65 F&B leases throughout New York City in 2021 alone, representing about 33 percent of the total deal volume.  Specifically within Manhattan, there were 24 leases executed for F&B concepts in the third quarter …

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Timbale-Terrace-Harlem

By Taylor Williams For lenders and investors in New York City’s affordable housing market, accurately underwriting rent growth, operating costs and long-term asset appreciation can be a tricky proposition in today’s economic environment.  To be fair, buyers and financiers of affordable housing properties in many U.S. markets are being forced to adjust and recalculate their metrics due to forces they can’t control. Yet macroeconomic factors like rising inflation, which puts heavy pressure on construction and operating costs, can often seem more acute in the Big Apple, where the cost of living and doing business is already higher than virtually anywhere else in the country. Economic Drivers The labor and materials costs for the renovations and rehabilitations that many affordable housing communities need are rising. According to Producer Price Index data supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the month of August, the latest report available at the time of this writing, the aggregate cost of construction materials had risen by 19 percent from August 2019.  Much of this rise in materials costs is due to disruption of the global supply chain via COVID-19, causing developers of much-needed housing stock to incur heftier budgets and longer construction timelines on …

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292-N.-Eighth-St.-Brooklyn

By Mark Fogel, founder, ACRES Capital Despite the pandemic-related uncertainty that dominated the markets in 2020, the student housing sector consistently displayed strong pre-lease occupancy rates among properties under construction, suggesting that the asset class would be well-positioned to hit the ground running in 2021. According to RealPage Analytics, students, encouraged by the prospect of fully reopened campuses, fueled a nearly 10 percent nationwide increase in pre-lease occupancy at off-campus housing between March and April of this year. This data in particular seems to support improvement for the student housing sector overall. Research organization RealPage has tracked student housing occupancy rates at 175 major universities across the country, a sort of barometer for the larger industry. As of March, the company’s data showed that 59.6 percent of beds at those universities were preleased for the fall 2021 semester. While that figure is still 200 basis points below the March 2020 level, it seemingly speaks to students’ preference to get back to living on campus. And while this is good news for operators and developers, the resiliency of the student housing market is bringing forth an unintended, but positive effect on one of the hardest-hit rental markets in the country: New …

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Marcus-Pull-Quote

By Joel Marcus, partner, Marcus & Pollack LLP What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The longstanding physics conundrum encapsulates the situation in which New York City property owners currently find themselves, and for better or worse, they’re about to discover the answer to the age-old question. City government has squeezed increasing sums of property taxes from its real estate stock in each of the past 25 years, but the pandemic is changing everything. The basic fact is that 53 percent of New York City revenues come from real estate taxes. Fueled by rising rents that are tied to high costs of new construction, the city property tax base has grown and enjoyed record tax revenues in recent years. Total real property tax revenue was almost $30 billion in 2020, according to the city’s annual property tax report. Historically speaking, no major event in recent memory has been responsible for a pause in  the year-over-year tax increases — not the Financial Crisis of 2018, nor Hurricane Sandy, nor even the events of September 11. It seems as though only a global pandemic has this particular power. COVID-19 has affected every element of New York City’s economy, but …

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Williamsburg-Brooklyn

By Lev Mavashev, founder and principal, Alpha Realty Last year in 2020 and even now well into 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has many New York City property owners feeling like deer in headlights. Should I push forward? Take a step back? Or should I just freeze and brace for impact from the worst disaster to strike the world in living memory? While little is certain in these uncertain times, for New York’s multifamily owners considering their future beyond 2021, values might drastically be impacted by the following factors. Rising Property Taxes New York will never move forward unless its real estate industry moves forward. Next to finance and, increasingly, big tech, the industry is the biggest driver of the state economy, and its 12-month enforced hiatus has cost the state $1.6 billion in lost tax revenue. The state can’t just print money to make up that shortfall, so it is doing one of the only things that is certain in life: issuing taxes. From hikes in property taxes to capital gains, personal income to corporate tax, both the city and state are creating a clear roadmap to recouping what’s been lost. Property taxes will definitely be going up for the …

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Hudson-Yards-1

By James Nelson, principal, head of Tri-State investment sales, Avison Young It probably won’t be a shock to learn that in the aftermath of COVID-19, we are going to need to reimagine retail. Even before the pandemic hit, retail vacancy was becoming more prevalent throughout New York City. Now more than ever, landlords and retailers are going to need to think outside the box to fill vacancies and allow retailers to survive. A recent survey among members of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), which consists of landlords, tenants and service providers, found that 57 percent of retail professionals believe that the economy will improve over the course of the next year. That being said, 73 percent wanted to see businesses open again in their state. A key question involves when we could expect to return to the in-person conventions and events that our industry is known for. ICSC is famous for its annual conference in Las Vegas that draws over 30,000 people. It’s a chance to catch up with friends and business contacts in a fun setting while also being able to accomplish dozens of meetings over a few days, as everyone is in the same place. Industry …

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162-168-Van-Dyke-St.-Brooklyn

By Jakub Nowak, senior vice president investments, Marcus & Millichap Last year’s COVID-19 lockdown took a major toll on parts of New York City’s real estate market. The city’s industrial sector, however, fared relatively well compared with other asset classes. Although dollar volume for outright industrial sales transactions over $1 million fell by almost 25 percent from $1.75 billion in 2019 to $1.35 billion in 2020, the average price per square foot over the same period held flat at about $445 per square foot. Meanwhile, capitalization rates for industrial properties in 2020 continued their steady downward trajectory, compressing further from 4.7 to 4.4 percent on a year-over-year basis. Importantly, these 2020 sales numbers do not account for the $800 million-plus of institutional capital that poured into local industrial real estate by way of partial interest sales. Notable transactions included a joint venture between Hackman Capital and Square Mile Capital deploying just under $375 million for a majority interest in Queen’s Silver Cup Studios; GIC obtaining a 25 percent stake in Sunset Park’s Industry City for $330 million; and a joint venture between Madison Realty Capital, Meadow Partners and Acadia Realty acquiring a share of Sunset Park’s Liberty View Plaza for …

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Target-Yonkers

By Pierre Debbas, Esq., partner at Romer Debbas LLP While headlines have primarily focused on impacts to small businesses, contrary to popular belief, large retailers and national chains have not been immune to the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurant and hotel chains, movie theaters, gyms and other experiential retailers have shuttered locations across the country. Just this past July, legacy retailer Neiman Marcus closed its Hudson Yards location due to heavy COVID-19 impacts. The big box retailer also faced store closures in other locations, such as Florida and Washington, due to a high loss of revenue. These large, vacant retail spaces have created problems, especially in markets ike Manhattan. While there are some moves in play, such as Home Depot taking over the Bed Bath & Beyond’s midtown location, or Target setting sights on the former 86th Street outpost of Barnes & Noble, the reality of vacant spaces – large and small – is apparent throughout the city’s prime retail hubs. When looking forward, landlords will have to consider subdivisions and repurposing of big box spaces to make leasing viable, potentially making way for smaller-concept retailers and the return of mom-and-pop shops. Essentially, the question remains: What is the true absorption rate …

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Hudson-Yards

By Kristin Hiller and Taylor Williams Retail and restaurant reopenings this fall gave a modest boost to the New York City retail market in the third quarter. But even with the easing of some operational restrictions, business activity remains diminished in a city known for its hustle and bustle. Both retail tenants and landlords have had to regroup and quickly adapt to the curveballs thrown at them by COVID-19 over the past nine months. While retail and restaurant users in some areas are finding more success than others, the market as a whole has been characterized by falling rents and a pronounced shift to delivering goods, services and experiences through different channels. In order to get a better handle on current market conditions and the outlook for 2021, Northeast Real Estate Business spoke with retail real estate experts in New York City, Northern New Jersey and surrounding markets. Submarket Fortunes Vary Without question, the city’s retail market is still suffering from a lack of office workers and a reduced tourist population as a result of COVID-19. According to recent data from CBRE, through September, the average office re-occupancy rate in Manhattan was 11 percent, meaning that roughly 89 percent of …

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New York Multifamily Rent and Occupancy Forecast 2020

New York state authorities last year passed legislation designed to maintain rental affordability and housing stability in the Empire State. Mandated changes for units not currently subject to stabilization were mostly technical in nature — relating to rent increase notification periods, evictions and security deposits — but the impact on the New York City’s nearly 1 million regulated units was significant. Previously, an owner’s ability to raise stabilized unit rents was limited by a city board, except upon vacancy or after major property or unit improvements were made. These exceptions were curtailed by the legislation, largely negating the appeal of buying, renovating and repositioning older properties. The regulations sent a chill through the recently hot New York City multifamily property market. Sales volume dropped by half last year to about $3.3 billion, with the largest declines coming after the law took effect at mid-year. Indeed, volume in the typically busy fourth quarter plunged to less than $200 million, the lowest single-quarter sales total since recessionary 2010. Although obscured by thin volume, cap rates appeared to rise. After hovering near 4 percent throughout 2018, institutional B/B+ quality asset purchase yields gapped higher, drifting up to about 4.25 percent at mid-year and …

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