The National Observer | Real Estate Edition | March 31 | Office markets that'll see distress first

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One way to look at which cities are at risk of seeing office distress sooner than others is to consider the number of upcoming loan-maturity dates for towers in a given office market.?

Within the next three years, loans are maturing on?more than 9,500 office buildings and 17% of all U.S. office stock, according to CommercialEdge, part of Santa Barbara, California-based real estate software company Yardi Systems Inc.?

While the biggest U.S. office markets are, naturally, seeing the greatest amount of loan maturity by volume, as a percentage of an office market, a few smaller cities are seeing a wave of loans coming due.??

The jury is still out on what'll happen to troubled towers with loans maturing in a higher-than-normal interest-rate environment and a markedly slower office market.

Here are other top real estate stories from around the ACBJ network:

1. Downtowns across America are at a critical crossroads three years after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here's what economist Richard Florida sees for the future of cities.
2. 1 Montgomery St. in San Francisco is the first office building in that city to go back to its lender since the pandemic. Separately, the landlords of one of San Francisco's tallest towers have requested an extension on a $1.2 billion loan on the building coming due soon.
3. It's projected 16 million square feet of office space in the Twin Cities is at risk of becoming obsolete by the end of the decade — but is that an underestimation?
4. How will a recently adopted zoning-code change affect the housing inventory issue in St. Petersburg, Florida?
5. A joint venture of NewcrestImage LLC and Hospitality Capital Partners?purchased 16 hotels?totaling 2,155 rooms for $137.3 million.
6. Religious congregations in Pittsburgh are having to rethink their real estate in the wake of expensive property improvements and lower attendance at weekly services.
7. Why going green oftentimes means seeing green in commercial real estate these days.
8. Millennials have been unseated as the top homebuying generation as housing affordability crunches the purchasing power of first-time buyers.

Built by Ashley Fahey, editor of The National Observer: Real Estate. Reach me with tips, questions and feedback at?[email protected]