ABG Commercial Real Estate Blog
Local Boston & Cambridge Commercial Real Estate News from Industry Experts.
Wu floats long-awaited rent control proposal, but many hurdles remain
By Catherine Carlock and Emma Platoff Globe Staff,Updated January 18, 2023, 1:18 p.m In a bid to bring rent control back to Boston for the first time in three decades, Mayor Michelle Wu is readying a proposal that would limit allowable rent increases to 10 percent per...
Despite Near-Term Volatility, Multifamily’s Outlook is Promising
By Paul Bergeron | January 20, 2023 at 03:27 PM CP Capital says it’s best to focus on the future for multifamily investors, where fundamentals depict a bright outlook, coming off the past two volatile years that saw 2021 break records and 2022 pull back some. The firm...
Why Hybrid Work Will Reign in 2023
FEATURED FACULTY Martine Haas AUTHOR Angie Basiouny Hybrid work is here to stay. That’s the prediction from Wharton management professor Martine Haas, who was asked to share what she thinks will be the biggest workplace trend of 2023. Although the mix of remote...
What’s Ahead for the U.S. Housing Market?
he U.S. housing market last year bore the brunt of higher mortgage rates that rode spiraling inflation in the broader economy, but that will change this year, according to Susan Wachter, Wharton professor of real estate and finance. “The Fed is using the housing...
Top Office Owners Don’t Want to Own Only Office Buildings Anymore
Many of the most prominent office developers in the U.S. are shifting gears, looking to buy or build real estate that isn’t office. Boston Properties Inc. is planning to develop 2,000 residential units up and down the East Coast. The firm, which owns more U.S. office...
Some retail tenants look to aggressively expand even amid uncertain economic outlook in 2023
Despite lingering uncertainty in the economy, some retailers are preparing to roll out robust expansion plans in 2023 and subsequent years. An analysis by Minneapolis-based commercial real estate firm Northmarq found, among several retail categories, which tenants...
Meet the guy whose algorithm could solve the crisis of America’s empty office space
In early 2020, Steven Paynter saw an opportunity. The principal at international architecture firm Gensler had spent a lot of time thinking about resiliency in architecture, focusing on making larger buildings out of wood rather than concrete and steel. But the...
MassChallenge offers space to laid-off tech workers
The state's largest startup accelerator is opening its doors to tech workers who have been recently laid off and are interested in giving entrepreneurship a shot. MassChallenge CEO Cait Brumme said in an interview last week that her team has been watching the...
Conversions of Office Buildings to Apartments, Labs and Hotels Have Captured Attention, But Activity Amounts to Just 2% of Overall Office Market
BOSTON–Conversions of outdated office buildings to other uses such as multifamily complexes, life sciences labs and hotels have garnered widespread attention as the office market adapts to hybrid work. Still, conversion projects in the works represent only a small...
Here are the Mass. companies with the biggest stock gains in 2022
Most of them develop drugs. One of them imports and sells fossil fuels. Another one sells sand. The 20 Massachusetts-based companies with the largest stock gains over the course of 2022 (as of Friday, Dec. 16) span a range of industries. But, as is the case in most...
Shrinking Office Building Values Are Becoming a Dilemma for City Budgets
The sharp decline in office building values is likely to become a growing problem for the budgets of cities, schools and other jurisdictions that depend heavily on property taxes from these building owners. Most municipal budgets haven’t suffered much yet. For a...
America Needs More Immigration to Defeat Inflation
Consumer prices in the United States rose at an annualized rate of 7.7 percent in October, the ninth straight month above seven percent, thanks to still surging demand and stumbling supply. All eyes are fixed on the U.S. Federal Reserve to cool demand by hiking...
Emily Reichert steps down as Greentown Labs CEO
After about a decade in the role, Emily Reichert has left her role at the helm of one of the largest climate-tech startup incubators in North America. Reichert confirmed on Thursday she stepped down as CEO of Somerville-based Greentown Labs. Her last day was Dec. 5....
The Surprising New Reason Why Employees Want to Return to the Office
There’s a new top reason why employees wish to return to the office: to focus on work. That was a somewhat surprising result from Gensler’s new 2022 U.S. Workplace Survey released this week, according to Janet Pogue McLaurin, global director workplace research,...
US Retail Rents Lead Sector’s Global Recovery
Retail rents in markets across the Americas now stand a whopping 15% above pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. The firm’s Main Streets Around the World report — Cushman’s first in three years — notes that rents across global...
As Boston Apartment Rents Rise, A Renewed Push for Rent Control
Rent control advocates in Boston are once again pushing for new rent control laws. Of course they are. Apartment rents rose 17 percent in Boston over the last year, on average, including concessions. There’s no relief in the short term either. Market observers predict...
Viewpoint: How to use ‘innovation waves’ to reduce the racial wealth gap
While there is no single answer, one strategy to reduce the racial wealth gap is to motivate more Black people to found technology companies in targeted market sectors. Jeff Bussgang, a partner at Flybridge Capital Partners and professor at Harvard Business School,...
ECONOMY U.S. budget deficit cut in half for biggest decrease ever amid Covid spending declines
The U.S. budget deficit was sliced in half for fiscal 2022, the biggest drop in history following two years of huge Covid-related spending. Though still large in historical terms, the budget shortfall declined to $1.375 trillion, compared to the 2021 deficit of $2.776...
Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one...
Higher Interest Rates Can Take a Long Time to Bring Down Inflation
FRANKFURT—The world’s central banks face a nail-biting wait. They have raised interest rates this year at the fastest pace in decades. But those hikes work with what economists call “long and variable” lags so central banks might not know for years if they have...
‘Pencils down’: Commercial property sales slump in Greater Boston
Inflation and fast-rising interest rates are taking their toll on commercial real estate transactions in Greater Boston. Real estate investors bought $4.6 billion in commercial properties in the Boston metro area in the third quarter, a 27% decline from the same...