Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are links to five stories that caught our eyes in recent days:
• Office REITS Get That Small-Town Feeling by Rani Molla of Bloomberg
Key excerpt:
“But office space isn’t keeping up with the increase in office jobs, so more workers are being stuffed into tighter spaces. While that shortage can make work relationships uncomfortable, it has benefited landlords who are enjoying escalating lease and rental prices. It’s also a potential boon for companies that build corporate offices — especially if they’re located in cities that are expecting office employment surges.”
• “Aspiration Gap” Persists as CRE Women Make Strides by Paul Bubny of GlobeSt
Key excerpt:
“The 2015 Benchmark Study Report: Women in Commercial Real Estate finds that women now fill SVP, managing director and partner positions in greater numbers. And in one important metric, career satisfaction, women have now achieved parity with their male counterparts, as they have in terms of the percentage of women with direct reports. The study, which followed up on similar efforts in 2005 and 2010, drew on an unprecedented 10-year body of data, tracking and analyzing specialization, compensation and career achievement by gender.”
• Shared Housing, Micro Apartment Projects Often Push Legal Limits by Bendix Anderson of National Real Estate Investor.
Key excerpt:
“New York City now sometimes allows the creation of micro apartments in certain situations. Stage 3 Properties offers apartments as small as 265 sq. ft. (renting for $2,650 a month at its Carmel Place community). New York City’s density rules don’t allow too many of these small units concentrated together, so Stage 3 partners with existing apartment developers to scatter its units in larger apartment communities. Other shared housing providers do not follow the rules. ‘Many new shared housing providers are not doing it legally,’ says Watson. ‘I’m not sure how they are getting away with it.’”
• WeWork and Other Shared-Office Providers Aiming to Reinvent How Office Leasing Works by Randyl Drummer of CoStar
Key excerpt:
“The strong office leasing activity by WeWork and its competitors have helped fill the leasing gap in New York City and other big markets where financial firms pulled back in the wake of the Great Recession.”
• Why Millennials Are About to Leave Cities in Droves by David Morris of Fortune
Key excerpt:
“Myers, too, says observers have confused young people’s presence in cities with a preference for cities. Survey data shows that more millennials would like to be living in the suburbs than actually are. But the normal career and family cycles moving young people from cities into suburban houses have become, in Myers’ words, “a plugged up drain.”’