Archinect - News

China Evergrande ordered into liquidation after $300 billion debt spiral

2024-01-30T19:15:00-05:00

A court in Hong Kong has ordered the winding up of Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, dealing another blow to investor confidence as China’s ailing real estate sector continues to weigh on its economy. The liquidation order, made by the city’s High Court on Monday, comes after the embattled Chinese real estate giant and its overseas creditors failed to agree on how to restructure the company’s massive debt during talks that lasted for 19 months.

Evergrande’s liquidation could also set the stage for an unprecedented political showdown between Hong Kong and the mainland, as Reuters speculated on Monday.

The company had amassed over $300 billion in public and private debts since being ordered into negotiations in 2021. Overseas creditors are currently owed a reported $25 billion. Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, was one of several experts to compare its collapse to the failure of Lehman Brothers in the American market in 2008.

Americans just keep finding new housing markets to price themselves out of

2022-02-24T08:20:00-05:00

No matter how many times it happens, no matter how many cities and states try to blunt it with recommendations to build more housing and provide subsidies for those who can’t afford the new stuff, no matter how many zoning battles are fought or homeless camps lamented, no next city, as of yet, seems better prepared than the last one was.

Like other small cities such as Reno, Nevada and Austin, Texas that have followed San Francisco and New York on a similar path toward a domineering social trend that has come to define the way we live and work in the unfurling decades of the 21st century. Americans on both coasts have been cycling through skyrocketing housing markets since the end of the Recession, with states like Texas and Florida seeing an incredible influx of out-of-state residents in the last two years alone.

One assessment says Spokane underbult a total of about 32,000 affordable units in the 2010s, leading to a median home value that has risen some 60% since the beginning of the pandemic. The jump has caused a near-zero availability rental market and concern for SP director of community and economic development Steve MacDonald, who himself moved from there Southern California in 2017.

“I’m realizing more and more how important the future prosperity of this city is about getting housing right,” he told the Ti...

U.S. home prices reach record 19.7% gain in July

2021-09-30T17:20:00-04:00

U.S. home prices surged 19.7% in July, once again posting the biggest jump in more than 30 years. The record gain in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values nationwide followed a 18.7% jump in June and was the 14th straight month of accelerating price increases.

A measure of prices in 20 cities posted a 19.9% gain in July, up from 19.1% the previous month. Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle reported the highest year-over-year gains, with 32.4%, 27.8%, and 25.5% increases, respectively.

“The last several months have been extraordinary not only in the level of price gains but in the consistency of gains across the country,” said Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI, in a statement.

“July’s 19.7% price gain for the National Composite is the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data,” Lazzara continued. “This month, New York joined Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle in recording their all-time highest 12-month gains.”

S&P DJI believes these dramatic gains are due in part to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has fueled the demand for suburban homes. However, pre-exi...

Tadao Ando-designed 20,662 acre estate for Tom Ford finally finds a buyer

2021-01-12T11:42:00-05:00

After more than four years on the market, Tom Ford’s sprawling New Mexico estate has finally found a buyer. The property, better known as the Cerro Pelon Ranch, sits just outside Santa Fe in the Galisteo Basin area, and measures a whopping 20,662 acres.

The home features the Silverado Movie Town, which is built on the site in the 1980s, writes Joyce Chen for Architectural Digest. The set was originally used for the Western film Silverado, and later for films including 2011's Thor.

Previously on Archinect: Tadao Ando's sprawling Santa Fe compound for Tom Ford hits the market at $75M. Image: kevinbobolskygroup.com

As we reported four and a half years ago, when the property was first listed, Cerro Pelon Ranch had construction oversight provided by LA firm Marmol Radziner.

Read our interview with Tadao Ando, Tadao Ando Interview: 20 Minutes with a Master

"Built by award-winning architect Tadao Ando, the main house sits low to the earth over an expansive reflecting pool, with a wide walkway cutting across the water," writes Chen.

Foreign buyers try to escape American real estate market

2020-02-07T14:35:00-05:00

Chinese investors sold off billions more in U.S. commercial property last year than they bought, as other foreigners start to sour on the U.S. market as well. Foreign investors were net sellers of U.S. commercial real estate last year for the first time since 2012, posing a fresh setback for a market that is already showing signs of strain.

The Wall Street Journal reports that foreign investors sold $20 billion more in real estate than they bought last year as a number of international economic trends, including Brexit and an ongoing effort by the Chinese government to bring investment back home, converge to make the American real estate market less appealing to these buyers.

In total, foreign buyers sold $63 billion in property in 2019 and purchased just $48.7 billion, according to Real Capital Analytics. In part, The Wall Street Journal cites flat vacancy rates in the US apartment market and falling rents due to new construction and rent control initiatives as being partially responsible for the real estate cool off, as well, adding that "in New York City, values of rent-regulated apartment buildings have fallen by about 25% in a matter of months."

Housing markets around the world are increasingly synchronized

2020-01-29T14:06:00-05:00

Even though homes aren’t tradable, like soybeans or car parts, home prices across the world have become increasingly synchronized. This reflects a variety of factors, according to the [International Monetary Fund], including the increasing tendency for economic growth and interest rates to move in parallel across nations.

An interesting report from Sarah Chaney of The Wall Street Journal illuminates some of the ways in which housing markets across the globe—which are currently showing signs of a slowdown—are increasingly falling into line with one another as the power of the global economy continues apace following the Great Recession.

One reason, according to the report, is that following 2008, many major economies took to reducing interest rates as a way of spurring new investment. Chaney writes, "In the period of low interest rates following the global financial crisis, wealthy investors in the hunt for better yields swooped in to buy properties in major financial hubs. In effect, residential prices in those cities have become globally synchronized much as stocks and bonds are."

Peculiar home owned by Dr. Phil trust is filled with guns, bears, and so much more

2020-01-07T11:47:00-05:00

A dozen guns adorn the dining room wall. Bizarre figurines of bears and rabbits eye you from every living space...The exterior seems normal enough with yellow walls and a clay tile roof, but the 6,170-square-foot interior toes the line between eclectic and downright bizarre.

A Beverly Hills home owned by TV personality and talk show host, Dr. Phil's family trust is up for sale at a price of $5.75 million, reports the Los Angeles Times. "Bizarre" is the word used to describe the sporadically decorated residence, fitted with everything from a grand stair dressed in bulging wooden vines to a wet bar accompanied by stools with antlers for back rests.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Phil has never lived in the home.

This Ricardo Legorreta-designed mansion in Los Angeles will run you $77.5 million

2019-10-09T18:00:00-04:00

After selling his Malibu estate last year for $38 million, Silver has listed his Brentwood home for sale at $77.5 million...The bright-colored and striking Mexican modernist residence was designed by architect Ricardo Legorreta. Completed in the early 2000s, the roughly 26,000-square-foot house includes a circular atrium, a dining room topped with a pyramid-like ceiling and a 30-foot-high family room with hydraulic doors.

"If the Silver estate sells for its asking price, it would nearly double the Brentwood price record of $40 million set in 2014 when NFL star Tom Brady sold his home to hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre.," reports the Los Angeles Times

Commercial real estate is in trouble around the world

2019-09-19T19:59:00-04:00

Commercial-property prices in major cities around the world tumbled in the second quarter, amid signs of slower global growth and heightened trade tension between China and the U.S. Average property prices fell in the second quarter from the first quarter in Hong Kong and Seoul to London and Washington, D.C., according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Melbourne, central Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Paris, London, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. all saw a retreat in commercial real estate property values during the second quarter of 2019. The trend applies to struggling sectors like office buildings and malls.

Does owning a Frank Lloyd Wright home come with a secret curse?

2019-08-19T18:00:00-04:00

With only 400-some Wright structures still standing, surely these listings must erupt in bidding wars from eager buyers as soon as they hit the market, right? Wrong. On the contrary, Wright homes tend to sit on the market for years. Often with numerous price cuts!

Owning a home designed by a famed architect may be a dream for many. However, what are some of the unforeseen factors that come with owning such a home? According to Adriana Velez from realtor.com, owning a Frank Lloyd Wright home comes with its fair share of obstacles.

Velez explains, "for starters, keep in mind that most Wright homes were built in the early to mid-1900s. So these homes are up in the years, and often in dire need of upkeep and repairs." She continues, "Repairing or restoring a Wright house is even more difficult if it has landmark status. That means any renovation plans must be approved by the local landmarks commission, and are subject to restrictions meant to preserve the historical accuracy of the structure."

Norman Lykes - Interior. Image courtesy of The Agency

Other challenges buyers of Wright-designed homes face can include the unconventional floor plans, furniture, and specific color schemes used during Wright's heyday. Potential buyers should anticipate th...

Are real estate developers good or bad?

2019-07-31T09:09:00-04:00

In Seattle, Austin, New York, Denver, Minneapolis, Washington and the Bay Area, developers are the antiheroes of an urban drama over the high cost of housing and what must change to bring it down. But their arch-villain status today — merely invoking “developers” can shut down civic debate — deserves scrutiny

The New York Times profiles the real estate developer, an arch-villain of contemporary society who, by some accounts, makes too much money, bulldozes humble neighborhoods to make room for the rich, and wills inequality and displacement as a matter of business.

But is there another side to the story? Are real estate developers bad or can they be good, too?

Carol Galante, a former nonprofit housing developer, defends the development, in general. She tells The New York Times, “In places where frankly there isn’t a lot of development happening, how is that working for you right now? In terms of getting increased housing affordability, it’s obviously not.”

Galante also takes aim at the notion that developers make too much profit, adding, “There is just a total lack of understanding of the economics of building new housing today, of the math behind it, and what developers actually make or don’t make. This is not your father’s subdivision process of the 1950s.”

...

Tech companies are taking over L.A.

2019-07-19T16:16:00-04:00

The Los Angeles office market has been on the upswing since 2013 and showed no sign of stalling in the second quarter as tech and entertainment firms continue to expand into new space. Developers are responding to the demand by building new offices that are often rented long before they are completed, which was unusual during previous real estate cycles when tenants typically waited to see finished buildings before making commitments.

The tech industry's expansion into the Los Angeles office market continues unabated, The Los Angeles Times reports.

In recent months, Los Angeles has grown to become home to the third-largest tech workforce on the west coast, with San Francisco and Seattle still far in the lead. The expansion, according to The Los Angeles Times, is putting pressure on the city's office market, even as a collection of new office developments and expansions come online.

In 2011, for example, Google moved into the Frank Gehry-designed Binoculars Building in L.A.'s Venice neighborhood.

NYC apartment sales soften as rent control spooks investors

2019-07-18T16:50:00-04:00

In the first half of 2019, New York City apartment building sales fell 48% from the same period a year earlier, B6 said in a report. It was the biggest decline for any six-month period in data going back to 2009. In northern Manhattan, which includes Harlem, the drop in multifamily purchases led to a 61% slide in all commercial-property transactions, the firm said.

Across New York City, as the effects of the New York State's recently-enacted rent control laws begin to take shape, apartment building owners are having a tough time finding investors to purchase their properties.

According to Bloomberg, apartment building sales are down nearly 50-percent for the first half of 2019 over the prior year.

“Right now, it’s a shot in the dark on the multifamily side,” Adrian Mercado, chief information officer at B6 Real Estate Advisors, told Bloomberg, adding, “People are speculating as to what buildings should be trading at.”

Foreign investment in U.S. residential real estate drops 36%

2019-07-17T15:44:00-04:00

Challenging conditions in the U.S. housing market, along with tighter currency controls by the Chinese government, caused a stunning drop in foreign demand for American homes. The dollar volume of homes purchased by foreign buyers from April 2018 through March 2019 dropped 36% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

NAR’s Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2019 survey reports that "for the seventh consecutive year, China exceeded all other countries in terms of dollar volume of purchases, buying an estimated $13.4 billion worth of residential property, a 56% decline from the previous 12 months. The Chinese economy is growing at a slower pace compared to past years, slowing to 6.3% in 2019 compared to 6.9% in 2017. The Chinese government has also tightened the monitoring of dollar outflows since 2016 to manage its foreign exchange reserves."

The top 5 destinations of foreign home purchases were Florida (20%), California (12%), Texas (10%), Arizona (5%), and New Jersey (4%).

NYC's 10 largest property owners controlling the city landscape

2018-09-17T14:53:00-04:00

Earlier this month, The Real Deal put out a monster analysis looking at the biggest property owners across the city based on square footage, along with their annual net operating income. Their thorough analysis is definitely worth a read, but right here we’re going to give you a breakdown of the top 10 biggest property owners in the city, and some of the projects you might recognize them for.

Curbed New York has put together a list of the top real estate players in NYC along with some of their notable projects in the city. Below are the top 10 property owners controlling NYC's built environment:

1. The City of New York
2. Vornado Realty Trust
3. SL Green Realty
4. Tishman Speyer
5. Blackstone Group
6. Related Companies
7. Columbia University
8. Brookfield Property Partners
9. RXR Realty
10. New York University

Who owns real estate flooded from climate change?

2018-05-03T16:54:00-04:00

As seas rise and coasts wash away, who owns the land that goes underwater? Versions of that debate are taking place in courtrooms, legislatures, and government offices, raising the question of whether and when climate change justifies seizing private property. The stakes are enormous, affecting not just ownership of offshore mineral and fishing rights but also potentially trillions of dollars of coastal real estate.

Climate change has left many rules governing real estate ownership murky. As sea levels rise this especially affects coastal property and laws hinging on high-tide lines.

Examining the Housing Crisis—a book and a film

2017-09-01T15:46:00-04:00

Housing has instead become one of the primary drivers of global capitalism, through commodification and financialization, making its function as real estate more important than its use as lived, space. It is the result of spatial developments being market-driven. Madden and Marcuse: “housing is not produced and distributed for dwelling at all,” but “as a commodity to enrich the few.”

The German documentary City for Sale that came out last year and the recently released book In Defense of Housing are the perfect match for anyone who wants to learn about the broken nature of housing markets, the crisis currently happening in all big cities worldwide.

City for Sale consists of interviews taken over a course of 4 years, where the author, Andreas Wilcke, accompanies real estate agents and investors during their daily routine and films tenants struggling to cope with the situation, providing the viewers with an opportunity to experience the turnaround of a whole city virtually at first hand.

In Defense of Housing by David Madden and Peter Marcuse, too, is full of examples from both sides of the story, where personal property are examined as both categories–shelter, safety, identity for the general population versus investment and a supplemental source of income for the lucky few. The book also demonstrates examples of numerous cities and countries, detailing destructi...

Is Vancouver's 15% tax on overseas buyers helping to cool the housing market?

2016-10-12T14:22:00-04:00

There is a city which is suffering a worse property bubble than Sydney, whose residents are more priced-out than Londoners, and where there is a greater divide between the housing haves and have-nots than even San Francisco. That city is Vancouver, and in response to these mounting challenges, the west-coast Canadian metropolis recently imposed an extraordinary new tax on foreign buyers – whose impact is now being watched closely by other cities grappling with bloated property markets.

Property funds suspend trading in biggest seize-up since financial crisis

2016-07-08T03:25:00-04:00

Property funds worth £18 billion have stopped trading after Brexit sent a chill through the commercial property market. [...] The fear was that too many property investors would try to take their money out at once, forcing fund managers to sell properties at a loss. [...] The Bank of England has warned that the share prices of UK real estate investment trusts have fallen sharply following the referendum.

Read more about the effects of Brexit on archinect:

Creative Currency, post-Brexit

Post-Brexit pessimism causes precautionary job losses

After Brexit, “the priority for the government at this time will not be big sexy projects”

Architects react to shocking EU referendum result