Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (7/31/24) – International Homebuying Shrinks Commercial Real Estate Focus on Sustainability, and U.S. Banks Boost Provisions for Credit Losses
In our latest roundup, mortgage rates drop to lowest levels since March, hotel construction activity highest since February 2023, Biden administration calls for legislation regarding property owners, and more!
- International buyers bought 54,300 existing homes from April 2023 to March 2024 – a 36% drop from the year before. (Diana Olick, CNBC)
- The Biden administration called on Congress to pass legislation penalizing property owners for rent increases above a certain level as part of its plan to lower housing costs through a series of administrative actions. (Mary Salmonsen, Multifamily Dive)
- U.S. banks have boosted their provisions for credit losses as deteriorating commercial real estate (CRE) loans and high interest rates fuel fears of defaults. (Manya Saini, Niket Nishant and Matt Tracy, Reuters)
- Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. office space will be vacant by 2026 as working from home persists, slicing commercial-property values by as much as $250 billion. (Matthew Boyle, Bloomberg)
- As mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level since March, applications to refinance a home loan jumped 15% last week, compared with the previous week, to the highest level since August 2022. (Diana Olick, CNBC)
- Sustainability is a focus area for commercial real estate institutional investing as there has been an increase in tenants’ willingness to pay more for Class A sustainable spaces compared to non-sustainable spaces. (Mital Hall and Deborah Cloutier, U.S. Green Building Council)
- In June, U.S. hotel construction activity was the highest it’s been since February 2023 with upscale and upper midscale rooms accounting for about 50% of all rooms. (Noelle Mateer, Hotel Dive)
