creiZ about Real Estate

I was just reading the "Welcome to Metropolis" article in Retail Traffic magazine. The article states that "MacFarlane already has 2.2 billion to invest. Meanwhile, DLC Management Corp. Has joined with G.L. Blackstone & Associates to form DLC UrbanCore LLC and is sitting on $100 million in capital." Imagine that! (I wish I had $100M to sit on!) I actually know of a couple of potential infill sites in Baltimore that could be ideal for redevelopment. In particular I know of one on the west side of Baltimore that currently has a number of vacant buildings. There are also vacant warehouses in several Baltimore areas that could be redeveloped.

So if anyone that reads this blog works for (or knows) any of the inner city developers, let them know I have candidate sites for them.

BTW, for those that are not convinced about inner city retail, here's an impressive stat from the retail traffic article:
"In 2002, ...inner city shoppers went outside their neighborhoods to buy $42 billion in goods, or 25 percent of the total $122 billion retail demand of those consumers, according to a study for the Boston-based Initiative for Competitive Inner City by Boston Consulting Group Analytics with Claritas Inc."

Another benefit (according to executives in the know) is the good returns. G. Lamont Blackstone of UrbanCore states that they are exceeding 13 percent returns and Victor MacFarlane says "the return rate for an initial $50 million (of a total $3 billion) invested by the California Public Employees' Retirement System was 30 percent in 1996."

Still not convinced, here's another extract from the article:

Baldwin Hills-and other inner city successes like Harlem USA, and Gulfgate Center in Houston-are convincing a widening pool of players that investment in minority communities is a good bet. "It will increasingly become mainstream as retailers recognize that there are few other commercial real estate opportunities in this country of the magnitude these present," says Capri CEO and Chairman Quinton Primo, III.

So where are the big inner city players looking next? (I thought you'd never ask... :)

According to Retail Traffic, they are looking in Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Austin, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. While Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Detroit are flat.

So do YOU know of good potential inner city retail sites in a city near you?

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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Posted by eMarv at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Houston Business Journal: More jobs were created in Houston between January 2006 and January 2007 than in any other metropolitan area in the nation, new figures show. "The [US Bureau of Labor and Statistics] numbers show Houston on a dramatic growth trend, outpacing the rest of the nation in jobs gained," said Jeff Moseley, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. "This is great news for our region and further validates our board's vision of contributing to the creation of 600,000 new jobs and $60 billion in capital investment by 2015."

what this means for Houston real estate:

It means that there will be some growth in practically all Houston real estate sectors. After all, where are 600,000 people going to live, work, play and shop? One of the things that concerns me the most about Houston (which is probably the case with a lot of metro areas) is traffic. Downtown real estate is going to continue to increase in value so where will the majority of people (in the low to mid income range) end up looking for houses? More often than not they will probably be looking for real estate in the suburbs as property gets more and more expensive closer to downtown. (Remember, expensive is relative to Houston because you can still find decent single family homes under $200,000 within the main city limits whereas in DC, well...you'd be lucky to find a good 1 bedroom condo for that price!) So back to the topic...what this means is that there will continue to be more and more traffic! Naturally, developers and city of Houston and Harris County officials need to continue addressing the traffic issues immediately. Expand on the positive that Houston is already working on which Tory Gattis talks about in his houston strategies blog.

Personally, I think that more mixed used the development would be helpful. In many areas it is practically impossible to find places that you could actually walk to from home or work (except in the downtown areas). It'd be nice to actually walk to places without having to take a car everywhere and always have to find parking. I know that a common argument against this might be that it is way too hot to being walking outdoors in Houston, especially in the summer, but a good integration of trees would help too. (And according to Tory and the Houston chronicle, it looks like that is starting to happen too.) Only time will tell...

shameless plug: And I hope that my company can be a part of the Houston's future in the near future!

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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FOCUS

Our primary area of focus is in finding opportunistic (i.e. value-add or as-is) multi-family real estate properties in the United States where we can increase the value of a property by 25%-50% (or more) through physical and managerial improvements.

PARTNERING 

We are interested in partnering with institutional, international and other accredited investors that are looking for higher yields than typical turn-key real estate investment properties can provide. Whereas a NNN leased single tenant office building can provide cash-on-cash return in a major market of 10% or less, we are able to obtain cash-on-cash returns of 20% or better (i.e. twice as much as an average cash-on-cash return).

OPPORTUNISTIC INVESTMENTS

Interested in Opportunistic Investments? 

CONTACT US IF YOU READY TO INVEST FOR GREATER RETURNS

240-441-5086

mcorea [at] esenai [dot] com 

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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