Florida’s governor says no to public financing of a stadium, Iowa’s governor says yes to bringing down property taxes, and Kamala Harris says something (we’re not sure what) at an Australian real estate conference. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of May 26-30.
Hit: No Foul Balls. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pledged not to use state money for the construction of a new stadium for Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays. “We are not taking your tax dollars to do any stadiums at the state level. (It’s) just not going to happen,” DeSantis said at a press conference, adding, “We help with roads and exits and some stuff like that, but that’s the proper role of government. So, I think we’ll be helpful within the confines of what’s appropriate for taxpayers to be doing, but it will not involve, at our level, giving money for the construction of a stadium.” Now, there’s something you don’t see every day – an elected official who is not hypnotized into using taxpayer money to build stadiums that very rich teams should finance with their own funds.
Hit: Property Tax Priorities. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is putting her proposed elimination of the state’s income tax on the back burner while focusing on property tax reform in the 2026 legislative session. Reynolds, who is not seeking re-election next year, has heavily emphasized tax cutting and previously envisioned a “zero individual income tax rate.” However, she is focusing on property taxes because “that is what we hear about all the time.” Indeed, more states and localities are pushing back at onerous property taxes, and Reynolds is wisely paying attention to an issue that will certain be a major consideration in next year’s state- and local-level elections.
Hit: Fighting Fannie’s Fraud. Kudos to Fannie Mae for this week’s launch of its AI-powered Crime Detection Unit in partnership with the software company Palantir. The new partnership brings cutting-edge data science and investigations technology into detecting and preventing mortgage fraud. Fannie Mae President Priscilla Almodovar heralded the partnership by announcing, “By integrating this leading AI technology, we will look across millions of datasets to detect patterns that were previously undetectable. This new partnership will combat mortgage fraud, helping to safeguard the US mortgage market for lenders, homebuyers, and taxpayers.” Hopefully, Freddie Mac will soon partner with Palantir on a similar mission.
Miss: Changing the Messengers, But Not the Message. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) appointed two high-profile communications professionals to its executive team. Bennett Richardson, the previous general manager and global head of public affairs at Semafor, was named senior vice president of marketing and communications while Raffi Williams, formerly vice president at the Managed Funds Association, is NAR’s new vice president of communications. CEO Nykia Wright said the association was “investing in world-class talent to ensure our members, policymakers, and the public clearly understand who we are, what we stand for, and the critical role realtors play in helping people across America achieve the dream of homeownership.” Sadly, Wright still fails to acknowledge that NAR’s problem is not with its messengers, but with its message, and bringing in pricey spin doctors will not fix a problem that requires more than press releases and snappy social media posts to solve.
Hit: Welcome Back, Brooks Brothers. The nation’s oldest retailer, 207-year-old Brooks Brothers, has returned to its roots with a new global flagship store in lower Manhattan. WWD reports the men’s haberdasher opened a new store this week in a 10,000-square-foot, two-level space within the historic Western Union Telegraph Building, one of New York’s first skyscrapers. Brooks Brothers was a longtime tenant at One Liberty Plaza. and the site took on global prominence when it was used as a temporary morgue after the 9/11 attacks. The brand was forced to move after One Liberty Plaza was closed in 2018. While the store thrived when its flagship store moved uptown to Rockefeller Center, CEO Ken Ohashi opened the new store by declaring, “We love downtown – it’s close to where the original store was located and to Wall Street. It’s also near the TriBeCa epicenter and the Financial District is becoming a hot residential spot.”
Miss: The Blunder Down Under. Our most sincere sympathies go to the attendees at this week’s 2025 Australian Real Estate Conference. For reasons we will never understand, the conference organizers imported former Vice President Kamala Harris as a guest speaker, and she lived up to her reputation for delivering baffling speeches. “I do worry, frankly, about what’s happening in the world right now,” Harris said. “It’s important that we remember the 1930s. It’s important that we remember that history has taught us that isolation does not equal insulation [and] the importance of relationships of trust, of the importance of friendships, integrity, honesty.” Yeah, we don’t know what that has to do with real estate, let alone geopolitics. In fairness, Harris was on target when she admitted, “I am unemployed right now.” Perhaps we should be thankful for that?
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
The “Blunder Down Under” comments were on point and very entertaining. thanks!