Archinect - News

How corporations scooped up America's single-family homes

2020-03-04T13:20:00-05:00

Rather than protecting communities and making it easy for homeowners to restructure bad mortgages or repair their credit after succumbing to predatory loans, the government facilitated the transfer of wealth from people to private-equity firms.

A compelling long-read from Francesca Mari in T Magazine highlights the incredible transformation taking place within single-family housing market, where large investment firms like Blackstone Group have created a new investment vehicle by turning detached homes into rental properties.

The approach was born out of the Great Recession and has taken off over the last decade; Companies like Blackstone now own hundreds of thousands of single-family homes across the country in some of the nation's frothiest real estate markets, reaping high profits from a growing rental class.

AI-focused "College of Computing" coming to MIT with $1 billion endowment

2019-11-20T12:14:00-05:00

MIT will create a new college that combines AI, machine learning, and data science with other academic disciplines. It is the largest financial investment in AI by any US academic institution to date.

MIT’s new artificial intelligence-focused Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will "create 50 new faculty positions and numerous fellowships for graduate students," according to the MIT Technology Review. The school is set to debut in September 2020, first in existing buildings and later in its own facilities. Schwarzman is the CEO and co-founder of multinational private equity and financial firm Blackstone Group.

MIT Technology Review notes that one of the focuses of the new college will be to encourage students and researchers to think about the potential impact of computing and AI, both in terms of innovation and ethics.

Wall Street is cashing in on post-2008 housing crisis

2019-05-31T20:19:00-04:00

Blackstone Group is cashing in on its bet on the suburban rental class. The private-equity firm late Tuesday sold more than $1 billion of shares of Invitation Homes Inc., the giant single-family home landlord it launched following the financial crisis in a wager that many Americans would be willing to rent the suburban lifestyle they could no longer afford to own.

In the two years since private-equity firm Blackstone Group launched its suburban home management service, Invitation Homes, the company's stock has gone up by over 26%.

During that same time, homeownership has fallen to its lowest levels since the mid-1990s, rents have edged upward in the nation's biggest metro areas, and an increasing number of Americans have become long-term tenants of Wall Street-based investment firms.

Simply put: Owning rental housing is a booming business that, increasingly, is seeing profits flow into fewer and fewer hands. The phenomenon is due in large part to Obama-era policies enacted at the height of the Great Recession, when credit was scarce, demand was low, and the government moved to incentivize private investors into buying up flailing suburban properties. Nearly a decade later, following years of under-building in the housing sector, those policies and investments have begun bring in juicy dividends for the investment firms and their shareholder...

More details on Willis Tower's $668 million renovation

2018-09-17T15:10:00-04:00

Skyscraper owner Blackstone hopes Catalog, the centerpiece of the building's ongoing $668 million renovation, will set off a rush of foot traffic in the southwest corner of the Loop. [...] Anchoring Catalog will be Willis Tower's first food hall, a 14,000-square-foot location run by London-based food hall operator Urbanspace, as well as dining options Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, Luke's Lobster and Taylor Gourmet.

Chicago's Willis Tower to get $20 million expansion of the hair-raising Skydeck

2017-03-28T19:04:00-04:00

Not for the faint of heart, the Blackstone Group is planning on expanding the Skydeck, the popular observatory on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower, according to Chicago Business. The skyscraper, still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, was the tallest building in the world for nearly 25 years before being overbuilt by the Petronas Towers. The new owners acquired the space in 2015 for $1.3 billion, the highest price every paid for a US property outside of New York City, and are considering ways to further develop the property.

In 2009, the building then held by London-based insurance broker Willis Group, added retractable glass balconies. This panic-inducing attraction extends approximately 4 feet out into the sky, allowing those who dare the ability to stand 1,353 feet in the sky from a glass box referred to as The Ledge. Building on this popular attraction, the fresh proprietors of the tower are considering a $20 million expansion. With glass-bottomed attractions popping u...

Chicago's Willis Tower sold for $1.3B to Blackstone Group

2015-03-19T13:20:00-04:00

Blackstone Group LP agreed to buy Chicago’s Willis Tower, the second-tallest building in the U.S., and plans to upgrade the retail and observatory space in a bet on growth in the city. [...] On a per-square-foot basis, the valuation for the more than 40-year-old Willis Tower is lower than deals for newer buildings. The Blackstone price is about $342 a square foot, based on about 3.8 million square feet (353,000 square meters) of rentable space.

Previously: Need a skyscraper? Chicago’s Willis Tower just hit the market.