Optimistic About 2024
Commercial Observer
Connecting and informing industry leaders of trends and individuals defining the global commercial real estate landscape
Cheer up: A new report predicts a better year in 2024 for real estate investment, thanks to stabler interest rates and a stronger national economy. The forecast isn’t all smooth sailing, though. Read on for the complete picture, and for a piece examining just how much retail shrinkage is due to organized theft.
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— Tom Acitelli, Deputy Editor
CRE Expected to Improve in 2024 Amid ‘Enticing Investment Landscape’
A global commercial real estate firm is optimistic that the industry will have a healthier experience in 2024 after a miserable 2023. Hines, a private equity firm headquartered in Houston with more than $94 billion in assets, wrote in the firm’s “2024 Global Investment Outlook” that U.S. commercial real estate is poised for a turnaround in the new year, particularly under the weight of a stronger domestic economy and increased interest rate stability. Still, the firm highlighted concerns around huge debt volumes CRE properties are struggling to service amid near-negative debt service coverage ratios. “While the year-to-year result is bleak, there are signs of a turnaround,” wrote Alfonso Munk, Hines’ chief investment officer of the Americas.
Organized Retail Theft Figures Might Have Been Way Off But ...
The National Retail Federation (NRF) may be backing off its previous assessment of organized retail theft, but it was probably onto something. It turns out that the prevalence of organized retail theft in the United States was exaggerated for the most part in an April report stating that nearly half the $94.5 billion in inventory that vanished in 2021 was due to organized crime, which the report claimed had increased 60 percent since 2015. The claim didn’t exactly hold up to a fact check when Retail Dive took a closer look and found that only about 5 percent of 2021’s losses were tied to criminal enterprises shoplifting and selling inventory on the black market.
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