Commercial Real Estate News | Commercial Observer
WEBMultifamily Development Is Your Hedge. Kristi Nootens. For real estate trends & commercial real estate news, Commercial Observer has the latest on leases, financing, sales, construction, architecture, & design.
KBRA Acquired by Private Equity Firm in $900M Deal
WEBDec 13, 2021 — Eleven years after its founding in the wake of the global financial crisis, Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) has struck a deal to be acquired by private equity firm Parthenon Capital Partners, the company announced Monday. Boston-based Parthenon closed the roughly $900 million transaction to buy a majority stake in the global rating agency last Friday.
VC Investment in Proptech Surpasses Pre-Pandemic Levels: Report
WEBDec 20, 2021 — The dramatic increase in VC proptech funding surpassed the previous all-time investment high of $31.6 billion in 2019, according to the “2021 Real Estate Tech Venture Funding Report,” produced by The Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation (CRETI), an industry think tank and venture network. Companies that work in …
How Class A Space Became the Champ of Manhattan’s Office Market
WEBAug 10, 2021 — Class A’s volume has stayed ahead by many millions of square feet per year: In 2020, tenants leased 11.5 million square feet of Class A versus 3 million of Class B; and, in 2019, 27.4 million feet versus 4.7 million. Class A space has also weathered the century’s major crises a lot better. Top-shelf space in Midtown — Manhattan’s ...
Gary Barnett - Commercial Observer
WEBGary Barnett. The chairman and founder of Extell Development Company. Barnett grew up in Monsey, N.Y., where he currently lives, and attended Queens College and Hunter College before he began his career in the diamond business in Belgium. He began looking at real estate in order to diversify his family’s assets.
How the Construction Industry Navigated the Rise and Fall of …
WEBJul 16, 2021 — When lumber prices hit a record high of $1,670 per thousand board feet on the commodities market in early May, both contractors and homebuyers began to prepare for the worst. The past two months have seen an even more pronounced fall in lumber futures, which closed at $521.40 on July 14, after declining 70 percent from their peak.
How Les Wexner Created the Richest Town in Ohio
WEBNov 19, 2019 — In the 1980s, Wexner, a billionaire retail magnate and magnanimous philanthropist, went looking for a place to build an estate — or a fiefdom, really — and his eye fell upon the humble townlet of New Albany, 20 minutes northeast of Columbus. And lo, Wexner bought a plot of land in the Central Ohio village of 485 people.
Lessen Acquires SMS Assist in Largest Proptech Deal to Date
WEBJan 12, 2023 — Tech-heavy property services firm Lessen announced Thursday that it has acquired SMS Assist, an industry-leading facilities maintenance technology company, in a $950 million deal.The deal is the largest merger in proptech history, according to the companies. The transaction consists of cash and stock, with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Lessen raising approximately $500 million in combined new debt ...
2021 Young Professionals - Commercial Observer
WEBNov 1, 2021 — Every parent living with young children has thought long and hard about whether the last 20 months or so of isolation has had a permanent effect on their kids’ development.. How much does a child learn sitting in front of a screen instead of sitting in a classroom? Can the pixilated teacher really offer the same attention and focus as the flesh-and-blood kind?
California Landlords Fight State Eviction Moratorium in Federal Court
WEBAug 6, 2021 — A major landlord group is fighting back against the unprecedented tenant protections that started with the pandemic-driven shutdowns almost 17 months ago. The California Rental Housing Association (CalRHA) filed a lawsuit against the state in the federal district court in Sacramento for again extending the eviction ban through Sept. 30.