Bisnow Reports

The AI trade is reshaping markets and CRE is riding shotgun.A surge of capital into chips and data centers has turned AI into the backbone of U.S. growth — pushing tech spending to dot-com-era highs and doubling data center pipelines.But will it pay off? Alarm bells are ringing that adoption may not match optimism. That could quickly mean swathes of massive data centers sitting vacant.Michael Pearce, deputy chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, sees the opposite problem. On this week’s episode, he said adoption curves are running much closer to forecasts.His concern: CRE can’t keep up.“All the limits are on the supply side,” he said. “On the demand side it feels limitless.”

The starting gun has gone off: The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates 25 basis points. Now CRE can be off to the races.At least that’s the narrative.In practice, CRE cares more about long-term debt, and the 10-year Treasury ran counter to expectations and actually rose 10 bps, Jim Costello, MSCI’s director of real estate economics, said on this week’s show. Besides, the industry’s problems go far beyond interest rates, and 25 bps isn’t large enough to make much difference.“If you want to be successful in CRE, it’s not about that home run of capital market forces lifting the value tremendously,” Costello said. “It’s going to be a lot of singles and doubles.”That means a focus on proper leasing, getting the right broker, careful analysis of tenants and focusing on operating expenses.How about all that money waiting on the sidelines — will that finally loosen up with the drop in rates?“Here’s the thing about dry powder: When you get a little wind, it can blow it away,” Costello said.“If you don’t have a situation where managers can place money effectively and hit their IRRs, that dry powder will dissipate.”

It’s a high-pressure year for multifamily. Looming maturities, tough capital markets, changing policies, a major shake-up of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the horizon and intensified national attention are all converging to complicate the sector.But multifamily fundamentals are strong, Sharon Karaffa, president of multifamily debt and structured finance at Newmark, said on this week’s episode.“Absorption has been very high and vacancies are very low. Most of the supply wave is behind us,” she said. “So we think we’re on the upswing.”The ending of the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could disrupt the market, depending on how exactly it happens.Karaffa said it is critical that the privatized organizations have a line to the Treasury to maintain affordability, that a strict regulatory framework is put in place to avoid the mess of the Global Financial Crisis and that the agencies are not combined — the market needs both to keep competition alive.

Global bond markets are under siege and CRE is caught in the crossfire.UK 30-year gilt yields surged to their highest level since 1998, and volatility in U.S. Treasuries has repeatedly brushed them against 5%.For commercial real estate, that means more expensive debt, climbing cap rates and global investors second-guessing allocations.Christopher Stanley, banking industry practice lead at Moody’s Analytics, said the tightness of the spread shows increased competition in the market, but the entire yield curve has moved up considerably.That’s going to hit net operating income, and Stanley said staying on top of liquidity and forecasting out volatility all the way through the life cycle of the project have become crucial.“When we’re in a nervous economy like we’re in right now, everyone immediately jumps to what kind of credit problems are there going to be,” Stanley said on the show. “Credit is a part of it, but we’re really playing a balance sheet management game.”

This episode of First Draft Live is presented by Agora.The godfather of the CMBS market issued a warning that commercial real estate is not out of the woods of its downturn, which is a potential problem for the U.S. economy. “The losses in CRE are so big that the rippling effect of those losses to the economy are so big that they could be quite harmful,” Ethan Penner, the founder of Mosaic Real Estate Investors, said on this week’s First Draft Live.Roughly $23B of CMBS loans have matured without a resolution, and more than 10% are delinquent or in special servicing. Yet the CMBS lending market is roaring, with $60B in new debt issued in just the first six months of this year.“The truth is there are massive, massive losses in real estate,” said Penner, who is credited with inventing the commercial mortgage-backed security in the early 1990s. “These are breathtaking losses, and I think that clearly the system hasn’t recognized that on any level.”Penner also spoke about his candidacy for the California governor’s race in 2026, with a platform focused on deregulation and a radical new approach to the homelessness crisis in the state.“I don’t know where the toilets are in the state house, that makes me an outsider,” he said. “But I do know that the systems are broken.”Register on Bisnow.com to join the next conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

This episode of First Draft Live is presented by Agora.It’s been a chaotic year for the construction industry. Between a volatile tariff regime, elevated interest rates and increased pressures on its labor force, contractors have had to navigate one of the most difficult environments in recent memory. On this week’s First Draft Live, Shawmut Design and Construction CEO Les Hiscoe breaks down the impacts of the uncertainty and how his $2B Boston-based company is handling the turmoil. “When things aren’t known and you can’t really plan on them in our industry, you can’t give our clients predictability,” he said on the show.While many developers are responding to the moment by delaying projects — Hiscoe said one of his clients won’t start building until interest rates fall a full percentage point — Shawmut is advising them against it as the impacts of tariffs have yet to fully be realized.“Waiting is a mistake,” he said.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

The original Opportunity Zone program drove more than $100B into real estate and business investment, but it also faced criticism it missed its mark, failing to spur development in the areas that needed it most.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act just made OZs permanent and it aims to fix all that, tightening the rules on what areas may be designated OZs, lowering the area median income threshold and heavily incentivizing rural development.On this week’s First Draft Live, Steve Glickman — co-author of the original OZ program and CEO of Statt — said OZs have been a wild success, especially at spurring much-needed housing.“You’re talking bang for the buck that’s unparalleled,” he said.Glickman said the new rules will make OZ 2.0 even better, though how much it drives rural development all comes down to designating sites at “the nexus between need and investability.”Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

Liberation Day Part 2 has come and gone, and the U.S. has more clarity on the global trade landscape.Some of the levies will have CRE breathing easier, but some — including the 35% rate on Canada, a hugely important market for construction material imports — might be worse than the industry feared. Already, tariffs have driven construction costs up anywhere from 6% to 10%.But at least some of the uncertainty has been chipped away. How will CRE react?Cushman & Wakefield Senior Economist James Bohnaker said he expects deals to start moving forward again, though in a slow slog, not a rush. But with the U.S. is in an unprecedented macroeconomic environment, scenario planning by CRE investors is crucial.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

The rise of AI is pushing data centers to their limits. Calls for bigger, denser facilities are increasing and tenant power requirements are doubling in many markets.It’s still not enough to meet the needs of today’s market or tomorrow’s users.On this episode, Bisnow National Data Center Reporter Dan Rabb said keeping the momentum of the data center boom is all about finding power. And while possible solutions abound — microgrids and nuclear among them — being provided today aren’t going to come through fast enough.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

Though a few brave (or crazy) pioneers have dabbled with using crypto in commercial real estate, the industry has mostly sat on the sidelines for years.The reason: not enough regulation, no stability or guardrails.This week, that started to change. The passage of the GENIUS Act to create a framework for stablecoins, plus two other bills making their way through Congress, could lead to a rapid rise of building tokenization, digital transactions and rents paid by bitcoin.On this week’s episode, Savills Vice Chairman Gabe Marans said the federal framework will kick off a new era for real estate in which deals are done faster and cheaper. And he doesn’t think CRE is ready for it.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill is now law, and its impact on housing could be massive.The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit received its biggest reform in 25 years, including halving the requirements of how much of its funding must come from municipal bonds.LIHTC and the Opportunity Zones program were both made permanent, and major adjustments to OZs — including a wave of new zones to come and a new focus on rural areas — could supercharge housing development.It’s not just a welcome step from the U.S. government, Camden President and Chief Financial Officer Alex Jessett said on this week’s episode — new tax treatment and a deregulation push are absolutely critical to get housing supply up and start to chip away at the nation’s affordable housing crisis.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

U.S. foreign policy these days is a sea of uncertainty — CRE investors’ least favorite thing. From whipsaw tariffs to taxes seen as “revenge” against international players who don’t fall in line with Trump administration goals, money managers are increasingly tentative to put their money on American soil.This week, Trepp Senior Research Manager Tom Taylor discussed why it makes sense that some global investors are pulling back from the U.S., why it doesn’t worry him too much and who is still investing and in what.Register on Bisnow.com to join our next conversation live on Friday, July 11, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

The Federal Reserve decided yet again to hold interest rates steady at the June FOMC meeting. But CRE sees a turning point. This week, Avison Young CEO Mark Rose said the decision was irrelevant anyway. The CRE recovery isn’t coming soon, he said. It’s here now.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is being negotiated in the Senate, and how it gets hammered out could have major implications for commercial real estate. The breadth of possible impacts are huge, from the return of bonus depreciation, which could finally make the math work on deals, to qualified business income deductions allowing CRE to write off more debt and a possible ban on state regulations on AI, which could kill local rules on rent-setting software and change the data center map.On this episode, EisnerAmper partner Ryan Sievers broke down what CRE needs to have its eye on to maximize profit and get deals moving in a new tax environment.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

With the 10-year Treasury hovering near 5% and Trump’s $3T tax plan rattling the bond market, capital costs are surging — and CRE is feeling the heat. On this episode, Peachtree Group CEO Greg Friedman dove into how the rising 10-year Treasury is impacting deals, the challenge of supporting exit caps in a rapidly shifting environment, how extend and pretend is hurting deals and why he’s still doing development deals even though he expects CRE to underperform for a while.Register on Bisnow.com to join next Friday's conversation live, or check back here for the conversation after it airs. 

Between economic whiplash, shifting policies and market volatility that changes by the hour, you need industry insights that cut through the noise. That's exactly why we're launching First Draft Live, a new weekly series that breaks down what's happening, why it matters and what you need to know to do better business. Join us live on Bisnow.com every Friday at 12:30 PM ET / 9:30AM PT for conversations with the industry's sharpest minds discussing the week's most critical stories, or catch the replay right afterwards — here on your podcast app of choice.

Bisnow has released the fourth installment of the annual story tracking the levels of gender and racial diversity among commercial real estate leaders. On this episode, we break down the latest figures, and examine the current threats that diversity programs in the U.S. -- as well as talk about how backlash and the Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action could filter through to the industry. Read More: SPECIAL REPORT: Diversity In CRE Is Rising, But The Industry's Troubles Threaten ProgressPolitical Backlash Against DEI Having A ‘Chilling Effect’ On CRE's Diversity Push

Asland Capital's Jim Simmons, speaking at Bisnow’s New York State of the market, on the importance of mixed use developments, raising money from diverse sources and getting affordable housing built in a challenged economic environment. Read more: More Uncertainty Means Lenders, Developers Need More Partners To Get Deals ClosedFormer Ares, Apollo Exec Launches CRE Investment Firm, Buys 2 Apartment Buildings

John Kim, BMO Capital Markets senior analyst covering U.S. REITs, speaks about the third quarter earnings season. Read more: Vornado Pulling Out Of New York City Casino SweepstakesDespite Outperforming Sector, SL Green Stock Being Heavily ShortedSL Green's Sluggish Leasing Sends Stock Tumbling As REIT Readies For Turnaround

Distress in real estate is prevalent in industry chatter – and in the headlines, but when it comes to sales, it is still not much of a factor. bIn fact, less than 2% of sales are distressed asset sales in the U.S., according to Jim Costello who is the chief economist at investment research firm MSCI’s Real Assets team. Read more: CRE Loan Distress Hits 10-Year High As Office Debt Crisis AcceleratesREPORT: Regional Banks See Big Jump In Nonperforming CRE Loans, Related LossesVolume Of Distressed Asset Sales On Mute As Owners Battle A New Type Of CrisisLuck And Guts Might Not Be Enough To Ride This Real Estate Cycle