Category: Focus 2021

Mohr Capital Sells Amazon Last-Mile Facility In Austin, Texas

Posted on by Sarah

AUSTIN, Texas, June 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Mohr Capital, a Dallas-based privately held real estate investment firm, has sold MetCenter Building III, a last-mile distribution facility occupied by Amazon in Austin, to Four Springs Capital Trust in an off-market transaction.

The 160,000-SF warehouse/logistics building is located at 7000 Metropolis Drive in Austin’s Southeast industrial submarket. The property is 100% occupied by Amazon.com Services LLC and serves as its primary last-mile distribution facility in the Austin metro area. The sale includes the adjacent 20-acre parking lot, which is also currently leased by Amazon.

“After more than a year of owning the facility and the departure of one of its occupants, we worked closely with Amazon in 2020 and early 2021 to exercise its right of first offer to fully occupy the building through 2031. While our intention was always to hold this asset long-term, Four Springs’ off-market offer was very compelling. The extended lease-term, the credit quality of the tenant, the solid real-estate fundamentals of the industrial market and the great relationship we have with Four Springs made this deal possible,” said Rodrigo Godoi, managing director of investments for Mohr Capital.

In 2019, Mohr Capital secured MetCenter Building III as part of a 404,800-SF portfolio acquisition from Zydeco Development. At the time of purchase, the portfolio consisted of MetCenter Building III – then occupied by both Amazon and Uber Advanced Technologies – as well as a four-building, 244,800-SF office facility occupied by technology, government and health care tenants. Click to read more at www.prnewswire.com.

The Intersection of Diversity, Mental Health and Construction

Posted on by Sarah

Once a silent topic, it has been encouraging to see the construction industry’s enhanced focus on mental health. We have become more open to discussing the challenges that are faced, adept at recognizing the signs of stress, and critically focused on reducing the suicide rate within the construction industry.

Construction has the 2nd highest rate of suicides among all occupations, four times higher than in the general population. Earlier this year, McCarthy launched our Genuine Care campaign to help partners better manage self-care and spot signs of distress in others.

But what about the intersection of DEI and Mental Health?

Often when diversity, equity, and inclusion work is discussed, there is a focus on legally protected characteristics like race and gender. However, the work touches more than visible layers of identity and is much more nuanced. Nestled within the risk factors for a mental health crisis are feelings of isolation, physical or emotional pain, and concerns around sharing an authentic representation of current struggles.

As DEI practitioners, we are acutely aware of the need for authenticity, candor, and connection. Done well, DEI work is an integrated practice—where multiple layers of the organization are skilled at driving inclusion. All leaders should proactively create and maintain employee connections, reduce incidences of emotional distress, and coach teams to fully embrace coworkers who may need to take time away for self-care or more involved medical care. Click to read more at www.dmagazine.com.

Retail is Already Making its Comeback in Quickly-Growing Houston, Dallas, and Austin

Posted on by Sarah

After much of the national economy came to an abrupt halt at the beginning of the pandemic last year, Texan leaders were initiating plans to start reopening the state as early as May 2020. Then on March 2 of this year, Governor Greg Abbott signed a sweeping executive order that rolled back virtually all restrictions and superseded federal guidelines about business reopenings and best practices.

And while there was some ebb and flow to the ongoing challenges for retail throughout last summer and autumn, commercial real estate professionals in major Texas cities, including Austin, Dallas, and Houston, cite the state’s early reopening as one major reason why these retail markets have been able to bounce back rather quickly.

But there’s more to the story as each city has a different landscape and retail demands. Texas cities were affected just like others across the nation, but there’s now a perfect storm of pent-up consumer demand, investor interest, population growth and a general business-friendly sentiment that is brewing and lifting Texan retail to new heights. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

NestEgg Launches ‘Freedom’ To Give All Real Estate Investors Access to Affordable Property Management Service

Posted on by Sarah

NestEgg, a fintech software company that helps growth-minded mom and pop real estate investors reach their goals of financial independence faster with easy online property management, today announced the launch of their Freedom plan. With NestEgg’s Freedom plan, real estate investors are able to turn their long-term rentals into truly passive income with full-service management for only $29 per rental per month. This allows real estate investors to be completely hands-off much more profitably and saving on average 8-10% of their monthly rental income that typically goes to traditional property management.

The majority of mom-and-pop real estate investors today live within driving distance of their rental properties so that they can self-manage and avoid paying expensive property management fees. Now with Freedom, they can receive the benefits of professional property management at a fraction of the cost with a human rental manager that coordinates maintenance issues, collects rent payments, fills vacancies, handles all resident interactions, and more. Additionally, Freedom gives all real estate investors the opportunity to expand their portfolio with properties all over the state or country, coupled with financial benefits such as automatic rent payment on the first of the month (every month), and a six-month interest-free buy-now-pay-later option for property renovations.

Knowing that most real estate investors don’t have the time or confidence to do it themselves and someone will be there to take care of your property, regardless of where it is geographically, opens up a whole new world of opportunity. It makes a secondary form of income operate on autopilot without any real-time or energy being put in by the investor. Click to read more at www.galvnews.com.

Banking on CRE: Texas Lenders Break Down What They Look for in Deals

Posted on by Sarah

Robert LaRue knew it was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of a deal. His client, who happened to be another mortgage banker, was refinancing a 230-unit apartment complex. “The 10-Year Treasury dropped down to 60 basis points. I’d never seen it hit that number in my career,” says LaRue, Senior Vice President of Grandbridge Real Estate Capital.

While the client debated locking in that rate or waiting for it to drop, the 10-Year rebounded a bit. “We closed at a spread of 165 over the 10-year Treasury, which was 1.04% at the time of rate lock, for an all-in rate of 2.69%, 10-year term, 30-year amortization, nonrecourse,” LaRue shares. “That deal included an $8 million cashout to the borrower.” The lender is a life company, which rarely agrees to cashouts as it did for this deal. It was a sign to him that the appetite for multifamily investment is there. “My advice to borrowers is to take advantage of these rates while you can,” says LaRue.

He calls the real estate finance sector “much improved” compared to this time last year. Other experts REDNews spoke to used words such as “robust,” competitive” and “vibrant.” “There’s a lot of capital being put to work and I think there’s more capital coming in, so the overall health of the capital markets in terms of liquidity is pretty high,” says Jeffrey Erxleben, Executive Vice President and Executive Managing Director for NorthMarq.

“From an asset class perspective, real estate is looked upon pretty favorably. There are plenty of opportunities to deploy capital into many different options for borrowers depending on their overall strategy.” Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

Texas Legislature Close to Approving Billions to Pay for Winter Storm Financial Fallout

Posted on by Sarah

Justin Aguilar’s bingo halls in Corpus Christi lost a week of business and thousands of dollars during February’s deadly winter storm. That was devastating enough.

But that loss of income is dwarfed by what the business now owes because of the Texas power crisis: There’s a $120,000 electricity bill waiting to be paid.

Since the bookkeeper for Bingoland, Margaret Baldwin, got the eye-popping bill — nearly 50 times more than an average month for the two buildings — she’s just held on to it. Normally, the organizations that rent the bingo halls would be on the hook. But instead of passing on the obscene costs, Baldwin is hoping for help from Austin.

“If we had to come up with the money and pay this, it would shut down the halls,” she said.

The bingo halls had a variable electricity plan from Summer Energy that offers cheaper power when the state’s electricity supply is sufficient, but more expensive rates when it’s scarce. Exorbitant power bills now loom over thousands of Texas businesses like an overfilled dam, waiting. Baldwin and others are waiting for a desperately needed bailout from the Texas Legislature.

The February winter storm was one of the most devastating disasters in the state’s history, killing at least 100 people. It was also one of the most expensive because of spikes in wholesale power prices and natural gas prices. Electricity regulators set power prices at the maximum rate — $9,000 per megawatt-hour — for several days in hopes that market dynamics would encourage more electricity to be supplied.

Because the freeze knocked out many of the state’s power generators, electricity companies had to buy what little power was available at that exorbitant rate (the average price for power in 2020 was $22 per megawatt-hour). Natural gas fuel prices also spiked more than 700% during the storm.

Click to read more at www.texastribune.org.