Blog Posts
-
MBA CREF Forecast - January 2023
At the end of 2021, the typical (median) member of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee expected the Fed Funds rate to end 2023 at 1.6 percent. In June 2022 that figure had risen to 3.8 percent. In December 2022 it had risen again, to 5.1 percent. Those shifts in outlook from the Fed are both a response to changing economic conditions as well as a cause of change themselves. And commercial real estate markets are not immune to either, with uncertainty – and volatility – around the paths of the economy, interest rates and property valuations all causing significant instability for the market.
-
Chart of the Week: Select Indexes of Housing Costs
Housing costs are – appropriately – getting a lot of attention. Part of that attention stems from affordability challenges heightened by recent rapid increases in home prices, interest rates, and rents. Another part stems from the fact that shelter costs are such a significant driver of measures of inflation, and thus a key motivator of Federal Reserve policies. In this week’s Chart of the Week, we examine selected indices of housing costs. Until recently, various gauges of housing costs moved more or less in unison. These include: a) Asking rents, like those tracked by Zillow and the Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS), b) In-place rents, like those followed by the consumer price index (CPI) for rents and for owners’ equivalent rents (OER), and c) Mortgage principal and interests (P&I) payments, like those tracked by MBA’s Purchase Application Payment Index (PAPI).
-
MBA Now with Jamie Woodwell
MBA Now with Jamie Woodwell on Commercial/Multifamily Market Conditions, Office White Paper, and MBA's CREF23.
-
2022 Q2 Quarterly Databook
Commercial and multifamily real estate sits at the confluence of three distinct markets – space, equity and debt – all three of which are going through significant transitions, as is the U.S. economy as a whole. The second quarter was the second consecutive quarter of negative growth in real gross domestic product (GDP). The 0.6 percent decline followed a 1.6 percent drop in Q1. While two consecutive quarters of drops in GDP are often seen as a sign of recession, the Q1 decline was driven by weakness in net exports and inventories – neither of which appeared to show fundamental weakness in the economy as a whole. Expectations are that Q3 will return to positive, although slow, growth.
-
2020 Q4 Quarterly Databook
The US economy continued to rebound during the fourth quarter of 2020 but did so at a slower pace than Q3 of 2020 or what is expected to be recorded in Q1 2021.
-
A Post-Pandemic World: Getting from Here to There -- Trepp Year-end Magazine
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States in March, it raised two fundamental questions for owners, lenders and others involved in commercial real estate: a) How would properties get through the pandemic and recession and b) What would the "new normal" be for the sector post-pandemic? One thing became crystal clear early on - the answers to those two questions would vary dramatically by property type.