Looking to save some money on housing costs? One obvious answer is to get a roommate.

Moving out of a one-bedroom apartment and into a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate in Houston can save on average $330 in monthly rent — nearly $4,000 a year — according to a new study by Renthop.

The New York-based apartment-listing company compared the difference in renting a one-bedroom apartment and splitting a two-bedroom apartment in nine major metro areas.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal. 

Houston Center officially has a buyer.

Toronto, Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management agreed to buy Houston Center, sources familiar with the deal told the Houston Business Journal. Brookfield will pay $875 million for the property, per sources. The deal should close in around 60 days.

Houston Center went on the market in late June. The 4.2 million-square-foot office complex includes LyondellBassell Tower, 2 Houston Center, Fulbright Tower and 4 Houston Center, which also includes 200,000 square feet of retail space.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal.

 

So far, this year’s office investment sales volume is four times as large as 2016’s office investment sales volume, per JLL research.

That’s good news for Michael Zeitsman, an international director with JLL’scapital markets group, who’s been tasked with leading the firm’s office investment sales efforts in Texas and Denver.

In 2016, approximately $330 million in office investment sales transactions were executed. To-date in 2017, though, more than $1.4 billion in office transactions have been closed.

“A lot of our clients are telling us that this is the right time to invest in Houston,” Zeitsman said.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal. 

How does Houston rank when it comes to appealing to millennials?

According to a new survey, there are only eight better cities for millennials than Houston. Click through the slideshow to see the top 10 cities, according to the analysis by Apartment List.

Apartment-finding company Apartment List surveyed 24,000 millennial renters, between ages 18 to 34, and ranked 75 U.S. cities for jobs, affordability and livability.

Houston received an overall “A+” grade, scoring high for its job market — based on median wages, wage growth and millennial unemployment rate. But its affordability score and livability score were about average.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal. 

Several factors, including Houston’s rapid population growth and its access to Port Houston, are solidifying the Bayou City as a viable retail distribution hub poised to compete with Dallas.

Over the past 12 months, a flurry of consumer goods retailers, including Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), The Netherlands-based Ikea and Minnesota-based Best Buy Co. Inc., have either leased or are looking to lease distribution space in Houston.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal.

On Sept. 7, Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. announced it would build a second headquarters facility– dubbed HQ2 – equal to its headquarters in Seattle, and one that would bring 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion investment from Amazon.

Cities, including Houston, around the U.S. are tossing their hats into the ring.

“Houston is definitely interested in the Amazon HQ project and will look into the process of formally soliciting it,” a spokesperson from Mayor Sylvester Turner‘s office told the Houston Business Journal.

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal.