Distressed Real Estate Market Beckons Opportunistic Buyers
Hoping to take advantage of wreckage in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, investors are preparing to snap up commercial real estate at rock-bottom prices.
Long before states and cities closed businesses and issued stay-at-home orders, many real estate funds were stockpiling cash and waiting for a buyer’s market. Some have raised billions of dollars in the last several weeks.
As a result, Blackstone Group, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, Starwood Capital Group and other investment firms are sitting on roughly $300 billion of equity ready for deployment, said Douglas M. Weill, a founder of Hodes Weill & Associates, a global real estate capital advisory firm in New York. By comparison, property sales totaled $570.6 billion in 2019, according to Real Capital Analytics, a commercial real estate researcher that tracks deals of $2.5 million and up.
This Week in Real Estate Innovation
THE FUTURE OF WORK & THE WORKPLACE
Where Are Most Tech Layoffs? Not Silicon Valley | The Information
Some of San Francisco’s most well-known tech firms have cut deep into their staffs in recent months. But much of the pain is being felt outside the Bay Area.
An analysis of public filings from 20 tech firms based in the region, including Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, show that three-quarters of employees laid off worked outside the region, typically in satellite offices around the world or in lower-cost locations like Portland, Ore., and Nashville, Tenn.
Miss Your Office? Some Companies Are Building Virtual Replicas | WSJ
Stay-home orders and the shuttering of workplaces have given corporate employees some respite from getting dragged into time-wasting water-cooler conversations.
But some companies and their employees don’t want to leave everything about the office behind, it turns out, and are replicating their offices in “SimCity”-like simulations online.
AR/VR & ROBOTICS
Zipline Launches Long Distance Drone Delivery of COVID-19 Supplies in the U.S. | IEEE Spectrum
Some of San Francisco’s most well-known tech firms have cut deep into their staffs in recent months. But much of the pain is being felt outside the Bay Area.
An analysis of public filings from 20 tech firms based in the region, including Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, show that three-quarters of employees laid off worked outside the region, typically in satellite offices around the world or in lower-cost locations like Portland, Ore., and Nashville, Tenn.
MeetinVR launches online VR meetings with ‘superpowers’ | Venture Beat
Eighteen months ago, we traveled to Rwanda to see how Zipline had made fast, dependable drone delivery a critical part of medical supply infrastructure on a national scale. But outside of Africa, Zipline’s long-distance delivery drones have had to contend with complex and crowded airspace, decades of stale regulation, and a healthcare system that’s at least (sort of) functional, if not particularly agile.
STATE OF THE MARKET
REIT stocks rise as NYSE trading floor reopens | The Real Deal
Eighteen months ago, we traveled to Rwanda to see how Zipline had made fast, dependable drone delivery a critical part of medical supply infrastructure on a national scale. But outside of Africa, Zipline’s long-distance delivery drones have had to contend with complex and crowded airspace, decades of stale regulation, and a healthcare system that’s at least (sort of) functional, if not particularly agile.
Microsoft takes up 523,000 sqft lease in Atlanta | GlobeSt.com
Stay-home orders and the shuttering of workplaces have given corporate employees some respite from getting dragged into time-wasting water-cooler conversations.
But some companies and their employees don’t want to leave everything about the office behind, it turns out, and are replicating their offices in “SimCity”-like simulations online.
PROPTECH NEWS
Furniture Startup Snags $15M As Stay-At-Home Decor Booms | BISNOW
Some of San Francisco’s most well-known tech firms have cut deep into their staffs in recent months. But much of the pain is being felt outside the Bay Area.
An analysis of public filings from 20 tech firms based in the region, including Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, show that three-quarters of employees laid off worked outside the region, typically in satellite offices around the world or in lower-cost locations like Portland, Ore., and Nashville, Tenn.
Smart Home Startup SmartRent Closes $60M Series C Round | Commercial Observer
Smart home startup SmartRent has closed a $60 million Series C round led by Spark Capital to fund the next stage of its growth, the company announced.
The Arizona-based firm provides home automation software to apartment landlords, and completed its Series B round less than a year ago. Other investors in the round include Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Bain Capital Ventures, which led its previous round and proptech-focused VC firms Fifth Wall Ventures and RET Ventures. SmartRent has raised a total of $102 million since it was founded in 2017.
The Festival of Real Estate Innovation
ANYSIZEDEALS WEEK UPDATES
Billionaire Silicon Valley Investor Tim Draper to Keynote AnySizeDeals Week
AnySizeDeals is excited to announce that Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Tim Draper, will be one of the headline speakers at this year’s AnySizeDeals Week – The Festival of Real Estate Innovation.
Tim Draper is a legendary investor and the founder of Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. He funded Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, Focus Media, Ring, CoinBase, Docusign, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and 15 other unicorns at the seed stage.
AnySizeDeals Week launches ASDMatch – Connecting Real Estate Executives to Tech Companies
Whether we want to admit it or not, the pandemic has revealed just how important technology is to running and operating buildings. Going forward, health and safety will be top of mind for any tenant (office, residential or retail) so it’s imperative for building owners and/or operators, to have the right solutions to meet tenant needs.
At the same time, sifting through countless pitches or being bombarded with jargon that doesn’t necessarily make sense to you is not helpful in your decision making process.
