A new stadium in Chicago, a new player in Sun Belt rental housing and cleaning up moldy residences in London. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of April 22-26.
Miss: The Bears Necessities. The Chicago Bears want to build a new $4.6 billion stadium complex in the Windy City, and the team expects the public to pay for 30% of that endeavor. Never mind that there is nothing wrong with the historic Soldier Field where the team plays – the Bears said they’d keep playing there during the three years of construction it would take to build the new stadium. Karen Murphy, the team’s executive vice president of stadium development, tried to spin this shakedown of taxpayers by proclaiming, “I will remind everyone that these infrastructure projects drive jobs, and they create economic impact.” Considering the state of economic chaos that Chicago is floundering in, perhaps the millionaires who own the Bears will show a sense of concern for the city that enriched them and foot the entire bill for their bloated project.
Miss: A Double Gut Punch. The Texas capital of Austin is reeling this week with the prospective loss of jobs from two of its most prominent employers. First, Elon Musk’s Tesla informed the Texas Workforce Commission that it laid off 2,688 of its Austin employees – the electric vehicle maker is shedding 10% of its global employee base. And then, Oracle announced it will be relocating its headquarters in Nashville, with Chairman Larry Ellison proclaiming he was moving to Tennessee because it is “the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry, so in a sense, it was kind of easy to pick.” Neither company’s headquarters operations had been in Austin very long – Oracle relocated in 2020 while Tesla arrived the following year. Hopefully, the loss of so many local jobs will not damage Austin’s housing market, which grew considerably thanks to Tesla and Oracle but is now facing a major employment void.
Hit: A New Player in Rental Housing. One of the most invigorating financial stories this week involved the partnership between the property developer RXR and One Investment Management to create a $500 million fund focused on rental housing in the Sun Belt cities. The new fund’s launch comes at a time when lenders have shown declining enthusiasm in multifamily projects due to declining property values and an increase in nonperforming loans. An alternative financing source to fill the void left by reluctant lenders is more than welcome, and the companies are already focused on their first construction project in the Phoenix market.
Hit: The Right Call. Former President Donald Trump enjoyed a courtroom win this week when New York Attorney General Letitia James failed to void the $175 million bond that he posted in the civil fraud case related to the valuation of his properties. James was already preparing to seize some of Trump’s assets before an appeals court lowered his financial responsibility from $454 million to $175 million, so you can only imagine her fury at having her schemes squashed. James first ran for office vowing to prosecute Trump – she didn’t say what she would prosecute him for, except that she’d use the office of the attorney general to drag him into court – and perhaps it is time she put her obsession with the former president on the proverbial back burner and went back to doing her job.
Miss: London Rentals are Falling Apart. One of the most bizarre real estate stories this week involved the pledge by London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan to install mold detectors in rental housing properties over growing fears of health risks. Khan, who is seeking re-election to his third term, is backing a $150,000 pilot program that will install 200 damp and mold sensors in London rental housing, with the goal to help tenants “hold landlords to account” for property maintenance. The Daily Mail reported that 4.7 million renters are dealing with fungal growth after turning off their heat to save cash amid the U.K.’s dismal economic environment.
Miss: Here We Go Again. The hedge fund Hunterbrook Capital is still taking potshots at United Wholesale Mortgage via its so-called “news” site Hunterbrook Media. This time, the site published an alleged expose regarding the relationship between UWM and UMortgage, complete with irrelevant character assassinations aimed at the companies’ respective chief executives Mat Ishbia and Anthony Casa. Hunterbrook helpfully alerted its readers that it was short on UWM and long on the company’s rival, Rocket Companies, so we know that its mania for tearing down UWM has nothing to do with objective reporting. For those who can be bothered, here is the link to their coverage.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate news. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: carloscastilla / iStock
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Leitia James job IS to prosecute law breakers. It’s not an obsession, it’s an obligation.
Janet, I concur, “Leitia James job IS to prosecute law breakers. It’s not an obsession, it’s an obligation.” Any other position—-in the face of glaring over valuations of Trump properties—-would be Letitia James acting at the detriment of her NY taxpayers. Not saying that her actions deserve a spot on the “hits” list, but her actions certainly do not belong of the “misses” list either. Now, I’m researching the Hunterbrook Media company because I’m now suspicious of political biases tinging your reporting. Then again, this is an opinions piece, some bias is to be expected—-on some level at least. Overall, I enjoyed hearing about the happening in the real estate industry.