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With a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, no significant commercial real estate-related legislation is expected to pass, according to a GlobeSt.com analysis reported Nov. 7. Among the issues expected to stall: additional deregulation, further loosening of Dodd-Frank and more tax changes.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Nov. 6 that the 2019 multifamily lending caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will remain virtually unchanged at $35 billion each. The caps are based on the FHFA’s estimates of next year’s multifamily originations market, which the agency anticipates will be relatively flat.
Shared workspace provider WeWork has 12.5 million square feet in its portfolio, but experts don’t see it and similar co-working firms as threats to real estate investment trusts because the firms don’t occupy enough space to replace traditional office landlords or long-term tenants, National Real Estate Investor reported Nov. 6.
Investors are turning their attention to suburban office properties, which offer more favorable pricing than urban markets and cater to an influx of millennials leaving the city to raise families, according to a report from the Urban Land Institute, National Real Estate Investor reported Nov. 2.
Nearly 20 percent of real estate agents reported higher values for commercial properties located near marijuana dispensaries, and 10 percent noted higher residential values, the National Association of Realtors reported Nov. 3. About 75 percent of real estate agents revealed no difficulty selling residential properties in those areas.
Developers can earn a healthy return on investment by incorporating parks and open spaces into their properties because such features typically add far more in benefits than they cost to construct, according to the Urban Land Institute’s report The Case for Open Space, MBA NewsLink reported Nov. 6.
Mortgage rates during the past week rose to their highest level in seven years, which could stifle home price growth in some markets, although the economy continued to show resilience, Freddie Mac reported Nov. 8 in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
A Nov. 3 filing by Wells Fargo with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the lender’s software erroneously resulted in nearly 900 improperly denied mortgage modifications and more than 500 faulty foreclosures, HousingWire reported. Both figures are higher than was previously disclosed.
Two-thirds of builders report that availability of building lots in their areas was low to very low, depressing the number of annual housing starts — a figure that still hasn’t fully recovered since the Great Recession, the National Association of Home Builders reported Nov. 5.
Rising interest rates are expected to be the greatest obstacle facing the housing market next year, followed by a lack of affordable housing, according to a survey of mortgage industry professionals conducted by Genworth Mortgage Insurance, MBA NewsLink reported Nov. 7.
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