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Pemco
looks to buy former Casey Family building in SLU for new headquarters
A
Pemco Insurance spokesman on Monday said the company is pursuing the purchase
of an existing South Lake Union office building that used to house Casey Family
Programs for its new headquarters.
Bellevue
company provides details on new $250M hotel deal
The
Value Place brand of extended-stay hotels will become common in Washington if a
Bellevue company pulls off a newly announced plan to develop 25 of the
properties across the state in the next few years.
Apartments
rents outside of Seattle — in Pierce, Thurston and Kitsap Counties — rose 4.8
percent in 2014
A
small Seattle retail property next to Amazon.com's headquarters in South Lake
Union sold Thursday for $9.5 million, public records show.
Red
Lion Hotels Corp. said it's sold its Bellevue hotel to Wig Properties for $35.4
million.
Spokane-based
Red Lion (NYSE: RLH) said Bellevue-based Wig has signed a multi-year deal to
continue operating the hotel under the Red Lion banner.
Former
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has leased the top office floor in the
450-foot-tall office building that Kemper Development is building in downtown
Bellevue, according to a source on Monday who asked not to be named.
Unico
Properties paid just over $73.7 million for Smith Tower, according to King County
documents recorded Wednesday.
A
large building that's part of Microsoft's West Campus in Redmond is for sale.
It
wasn't the biggest deal, but given the price and location, it was noteworthy.
Late
last week a limited liability company paid $9.5 million for a 90-year-old
retail building at 507 Westlake Ave. N, in South Lake Union.
Renting
an apartment in the Seattle area? Then you're probably aware that apartment
rents and apartment occupancy both rose in 2014.
Late
Tuesday afternoon Amazon.com will show a city of Seattle board new drawings of
the big buildings the company plans to build in the next phase of its downtown
high-rise campus.
They
are, as the old saying goes, not making any more land, so what do you do with a
tiny, hemmed-in building in one of the West Coast's hottest real estate
markets?
Blanchard
Plaza, an office tower in downtown Seattle, sold Thursday for $122.66 million,
or nearly twice what the property sold for in 2006.
Two
parties very much want to own an historic building in downtown Seattle.
Too
lazy to separate your trash? Too bad if you’re living in Seattle.
Seattle
began enforcing this month a new law, which aims to curb the amount of food
sent to landfills. As of Jan. 1, residents of the city, including all commercial
Five
commercial properties in big cities around the country had their loans fully
defeased this week, Mortgage Observer has learned.
U.S. companies are
adding employees at the fastest rate in years. But those workers aren’t filling
up office buildings like they used to.
Despite a bad bet on
Caesars Entertainment Corp. CZR -7.51% , Apollo Global Management APO -3.05%
LLC may avoid losing all of its chips.
An investment group
consisting of a well-known Charlotte, N.C., developer and an Atlanta
entrepreneur, philanthropist and former U.S. Air Force pilot has purchased the
Winston-Salem, N.C., ….
Casino giant Caesars
Entertainment Corp. placed its largest unit under Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in Chicago on Thursday, leaving it to a judge to settle the bitter
dispute among the company’s creditors and the investment firms whose buyout
left the unit with $18.4 billion in debt.
NEWPORT BEACH,
CA—Sabal Financial Group L.P. has built its business on small-balance loans and
has found success in this less-traveled area of commercial real estate lending.
RIVERSIDE,
CA—GlobeSt.com received an exclusive sneak peak at Lee & Associates’ fourth
quarter 2014 Industrial Market Summary for manufacturing/distribution buildings
for the East Valley Market in Southern California’s Inland Empire, snowing that
even with a lack of inventory, the fourth quarter still posted strong activity
and gross absorption
A Chinese real-estate
firm known for its big investments at home is casting its net much farther
afield, becoming one of the most aggressive property buyers in California.
Investors are pouring
money into buying and developing senior housing, medical-office buildings and
other health-care-related properties, a class of commercial real estate that
has been outperforming almost all others since the recession.
Citizens Financial
Group Inc. reported a 30% increase in fourth-quarter profit as strength in
retail and commercial loans pushed up net interest income for the regional
lender.
Foreign investors, no
longer content paying top price for U.S. trophy properties, are increasingly
getting in on the ground floor of development projects they hope will become
the next Rockefeller Center or Chrysler Building.
The developer of a
$750 million Boston project that includes a Four Seasons hotel and luxury condo
is using the same playbook as the group building New York City’s tallest
residential skyscraper.
In the latest sign
that ultraluxury apartment living is spreading far beyond New York and San
Francisco, a glass-sheathed tower changed hands in Chicago last week in a deal
that is shattering records.
BERLIN—Not
far from the Brandenburg Gate, near where the Berlin Wall once stood, builders
are putting the finishing touches on a new shopping mall.
U.S.
investors in European commercial real estate celebrated the sector’s best year
since 2008, with sales volume, real-estate stocks and property values all up
solidly for 2014.
With
capital flowing into European real estate at levels not seen since before the
crash, some investors are taking a fresh look at rental apartments, a sector
that has yet to gain traction on most of the Continent.
Europe’s
commercial-property markets turned in a strong performance in 2014, but one
group of investors mostly missed the boat: those who bet on so-called cash-box
or blank-check companies.
Target
Corp. is shutting down its money-losing foray into Canada, wiping out billions
of dollars in investment to focus on the more pressing task of reviving its
sluggish U.S. business.
CHICAGO—JLL
just published data that show the amount of commercial real estate investment
throughout the globe hit a record high in the fourth quarter.
WUHAN,
China—A little over a year ago, a Chinese credit agency downgraded a government-owned
financing company in this dusty industrial city. Default—nearly unheard-of in
China on government bonds—was a possibility, it said.
Spain’s
residential real-estate recovery is a tale of two cities: Madrid and Barcelona.
MultiFamily
The
cost to rent an apartment jumped in 2014 for the fifth consecutive year as
strong demand and short supply left vacancies near historically low levels.
Apartments
rents outside of Seattle — in Pierce, Thurston and Kitsap Counties — rose 4.8
percent in 2014
PALM
SPRINGS, CA—From the Northeast to the West, panelists at NMHC’s Apartment
Strategies Outlook Conference here last week gave an overview of where the hot
spots are and where rent growth is cooling for apartments.
Since
it was founded 18 months ago, TruAmerica Multifamily, majority-owned by
Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, has spent $1.42 billion buying up
apartment buildings throughout the West.
Apartments
were the hottest commercial properties in the Greater Seattle area last year,
with buyers collectively spending more on such assets than on the
higher-profile office buildings, according to newly released data.
DISTRESSED
Glenn
Straub has an eye for distressed assets.
The
Florida real-estate developer has salvaged a golf community, a polo club, even
a 155-foot-long yacht called Triumphant Lady.
What
Do Macy's Latest Moves Mean For Retail & REIT Investors?
While the closing of 14
department store anchors located in struggling malls underscores how critical
location and demographics can be for bricks and mortar success -- that is only
part of the story.
Sears:
Is A REIT The Right Move?
Across the board, retailers
have experienced lackluster performance through 2014, with companies like
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), Target (NYSE:TGT), and Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD), among others,
reporting disappointing performance likely linked to consumer spending
attitudes and purchasing trends
Analysts
See Solid Returns for REITs in 2015
Although unlikely to match the
returns of 2014, positive fundamentals have REITs in position to sustain a
solid performance in 2015, according to market observers
These
REITs Were A Hit in 2014; How About Now?
Call it the year of the REIT.
Real estate investment trusts
ended 2014 with a total return of 27.5%, double the 13.7% total return of the
S&P 500 index, according to tallies this week by business information firm
SNL Financial.
UBS
Ranks as Deal Champ for REIT M&As
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA—On the
strength of third-quarter activity, UBS Investment Bank vaulted to the top of
the rankings among financial advisers for REIT mergers and acquisitions in
2014, according to SNL Financial. UBS didn’t place in the top three for the
previous year, locally based SNL said.
REITs
Reeling In Returns
A recent report released by
Markit's Research Signals reveals the significant outperformance of REITs in
2014 versus the broader market.
Canada:
OSC Provides New Guidance On Disclosure Regarding REIT Distributions
The Ontario Securities
Commission has conducted a review of the disclosure of selected Real Estate
Investment Trusts (REITs), and on January 26, 2015 published OSC Staff Notice
51-724 – Report on Staff's Review of REIT Distributions Disclosure. The Notice
identifies four areas in which the OSC believes that REITs should improve their
disclosure relating to distributions:
A hunt for yield and a gradually improving
property market are bolstering a key engine of U.S. commercial property
lending, helping borrowers to refinance but also reigniting fears the market is
getting overheated.
Richard Branson ’s Virgin Hotels has been
slow to get going since it was launched in 2010, falling behind schedule and
losing top executives. But with its first property opening this week in
Chicago, the billionaire entrepreneur thinks he has found an edge: women.
One of the world’s biggest hospitality
companies is trying to win new business with small hotel rooms.
