Miami investment fund, CGI Merchant Group is paying $375 million to buy Trumps’ Washington Hotel lease and will begin the process of rebranding the property as a Waldorf Astoria.
Warehouse Rents
Warehouse rental rates increased 15.2% annually across the U.S. in Q1 of 2022.
Fed
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the central bank was likely to raise interest rates by a half percentage point at its meeting next month and indicated similar rate rises could be warranted after that to lower inflation.
Blackstone
Blackstone’s assets under management rose to $915.5 billion, up from $880.9 billion in the prior quarter and $648.8 billion a year earlier. The firm raised nearly $50 billion during the quarter, pushing it closer to its goal of reaching $1 trillion in assets by 2026.
HST
Host Hotels & Resorts has sold the 1,780-room Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel for $373 million.
BX ACC
Blackstone Inc. agreed to buy student-housing owner American Campus Communities Inc. in a deal valuing the company at about $12.8 billion, including debt, a bet that rents will continue to rise as more college students return to campus.
HOAs
Home Owner Associations are blocking companies from buying single-family homes, rewriting homeownership rulebooks to thwart investor purchases of suburban housing as rental properties.
Mortgage Rates
Interest on the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage climbed from 4.72% a week ago to over 5%, its highest level since early 2011. Fifteen months ago, mortgage rates were at all-time lows.
Office Space
Office building landlords are bracing for a record amount of U.S. office space that is hitting the market this year with leases for 243 million square feet of U.S. office space set to expire in 2022, a 40% increase since 2018.
Airfares
Airlines are passing higher costs on with domestic ticket prices in March 20% higher than 2019 levels, and up 15% from February,