Category: News & Market Reports

Key Title Group Austin Shows Record Growth in Booming Housing Market

Posted on by Sarah

HOUSTON, TEXAS –November 18, 2021 –As the Austin real estate market is booming, so is Key Title Group Austin. The boutique residential and commercial title company, which is under the Bspoke Title Holdings umbrella, is seeing record growth within the company. “We are investing in ourselves, recruiting and retaining the top veterans in the industry and custom tailoring our services to best serve our clients,” said Sarah Blackburn, CEO of Bspoke Title Holdings.

Key Title Group Austin’s office operates under the leadership of industry veteran Hil Stroup, President and Jennifer Phillips Beck, Chief Operating Officer . Offices are located at 900 S. Capital of Texas Hwy in Austin Texas.

Industry veteran John Magness serves as Chairman of Bspoke Title Holdings. Magness brings over 30 years of top executive title industry experience. Magness most recently served as an Executive Vice President at Fidelity National Financial, Group President at Stewart Title in charge of all U.S. direct operations, and as President of Old Republic Title Companies where he led all revenue producing efforts for direct and agency operations, commercial operations, technical service operations and all entities in the title group. John oversees all expansion, growth and acquisition opportunities for Bspoke Title Holdings across the U.S. “Key Title Group is an integral part of our company and their growth in the luxury housing market in Austin is due to their hard work, vast amount of experience and dedication to our loyal customers.” said John Magness

Bspoke Title Holdings manages and operates a successful brand of title agencies throughout the states of Texas, Florida and Arkansas. Bspoke provides a platform of synergies designed to support their family of companies with shared resources and a collaborative culture. The platform is managed by a team of title experts who oversee the daily escrow, sales and administrative operations of each agency.

“Our dedicated team of Escrow professionals are passionate about providing quality service to all parties in the real estate transaction – both residential and commercial. We work in unison with real estate professionals, lenders, and industry experts,” said Sarah Blackburn, who went on to say, “ We strive to deliver the best service to ensure each client walks away with confidence in their transaction.”

For more information on Key Title Group Austin, please visit our website at www.keytitlegroup.com

Next up for RGVP’s Commercial & Investment Tour: Weslaco

Posted on by Sarah

The next leg in the Rio Grande Valley Partnership’s tour highlighting investment opportunities in the region focuses on Weslaco.

Panel discussions with Weslaco leaders and a bus tour of the city will take place on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021.

“We have got a lot of great sites to show those on the tour but we are going to do things a little differently,” said Steve Valdez, executive director of Weslaco Economic Development Corporation.

“There have been some elements to Weslaco that have been a setback. For example, we have had publicity over the flooding. So we will have our city engineer talk about all the plans we have going on in terms of mitigating the flooding.”

The RGVP calls its monthly visits to the Valley’s various cities the Commercial & Investment Tour. Among those attracted to the tours are real estate agents, land developers, and investors. They learn about retail and industrial sites that are primed for development.

Valdez said Weslaco plans to host a panel-style discussion before the bus tour.

“We will have some city officials, we will have some developers and then, we are opening up a new industrial park so we will have some industry leaders there as well,” he said. Click to read more at www.riograndeguardian.com.

Major Texas Retail Markets are Back to Pre-pandemic Vacancy Levels

Posted on by Sarah

The pandemic hasn’t exactly been kind to retailers as residents across the nation were asked to stay home for months on end last spring and summer. However, despite the ongoing nature of the COVID pandemic, there are not only signs of life for Texas retail, but an indicator that the health of the retail market is strong. Recent reports from NAI Partners specifically look at the markets in Austin, San Antonio and Houston, and offer compelling evidence of a return to normalcy.

Perhaps the biggest story in Texas retail at the moment is the success of the San Antonio market. According to the NAI Partners report, San Antonio retail rents have actually reached a new all-time high. Inflation concerns aside, the average triple net lease asking rent has risen by nearly a dollar from $16.08 in October 2020 to $17.06 this October. Vacancy and availability is also down in San Antonio. The current vacancy is just 5.2% while the availability rate is just under 7%.

The report also notes that this October was the first time in three years that the amount of net absorption was higher than the volume of deliveries between January and October, suggesting that demand is beginning to outpace supply.

There were a number of big deals that helped push the leasing activity well over 2 million square feet. Floor and Decor took 91,000 square feet at 13905 North I-35 while gyms LA Fitness and Crunch Fitness leased 50,000 square feet and 30,000 square feet respectively.

The story is similar in Austin as the city continues to witness tremendous population growth and investment. The vacancy rate currently hovers just under 4%, which is the lowest rate in three years, according to the report. This means that this is not only back to a pre-pandemic vacancy level, but this level of low vacancy predates the pandemic by at least a year. A year prior, the vacancy rate was slightly higher at 4.6%.

Also similar to San Antonio, overall availability is down and net lease prices are up. The overall availability this October was 5.7% — down from 6.3% a year prior — while triple net lease rents were up a few cents to $21.38.

There is less than 700,000 square feet of new retail space under construction in Austin, which could see vacancies and rents continue to head in the same direction as demand increases. Leasing activity was more or less unchanged between October 2020 and October 2021 at 1.78 million square feet.

Notable leases include H-E-B’s 102,000-square-foot lease in Liberty Hill and a 62,000-square-foot lease in Taylor, the report highlights. Ashley HomeStore claimed a 40,000-square-foot space in Cedar Park, also making it one of the biggest lease deals of the year for Austin.

And finally, we take a look at the Houston retail market, which is also quickly gaining ground. Unlike the office market, which has struggled in this last year, the retail market in Houston is back to pre-pandemic vacancy levels, the report reveals.

Overall retail vacancy was down to 5.8% this past October, which is a slight improvement from 6.1% during the same period in 2020. Availability is mostly unchanged at 3.925 million square feet versus the 4.046 million square feet from October 2020.

However, the big story here is leasing activity and net absorption. Year-to-date, Houston has witnessed 6.39 million square feet of lease deals and had 4.87 million square feet of space absorbed. The net absorption is almost double the number from the same period of January-October 2020. In fact, it’s the first time since 2016 that the city has seen a similar absorption rate, the report indicates.

The leases highlighted in the report include a 136,000-square-foot deal by Target in Montgomery County, the 77,697-square-foot lease by AXXA Auto on Gulf Freeway and Hobby Lobby’s 56,000-square-foot lease renewal in Willowbrook.

Build-for-Rent Portfolio in Texas Receives $15 Million in Financing via Walker & Dunlop

Posted on by Sarah

BETHESDA, Md., Nov. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Walker & Dunlop, Inc. announced today that it structured $15,000,000 in financing for the Hamilton Park, Tully Trail, and Memory Village, a collection of build-for-rent neighborhoods located in Tyler, Texas.

Each of the build-for-rent (BFR) neighborhoods features contiguous, newly built single-family rental homes that are competitively priced. Each home is approximately 1,400 square feet, boasts three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and features fully maintained lawns and landscaping, a two-car garage, private fenced backyards, and open floorplans. Built between 1996 and 2021, the homes are in very high demand, with all 123 currently 100% occupied.

Stuart Wernick, SVP and Managing Director, and Drew Garrison, Director, led the Walker & Dunlop team in arranging the refinance for the sponsor, a regional custom home builder, a vertically integrated construction, development, and property management company. Utilizing their broad network of capital providers, the team partnered with a regional bank, which proved to be the most attractive lender for their client. The resulting financing was a non-recourse structured solution with a fixed rate in the low fours for a term of 30 years with flexible prepayment options. Click to read more at www.news-journal.com.

Black Friday 2021? Pandemic Still Slowing Holiday Sales

Posted on by Sarah

Black Friday? It wasn’t as busy as retailers might have hoped for this year, according to research from Sensormatic Solutions.

According to Sensormatic, visits to physical stores on Black Friday this year — the day after Thanksgiving — were down 28.3 percent when compared to 2019 levels. That’s an important comparison: Black Friday of 2019 was the last one before the COVID-19 pandemic became headline news.

In good news, though, Black Friday visits by shoppers this year were up a solid 47.5 percent when compared to 2020.

Sensormatic reported that shoppers might be more likely to visit stores in person this year because of the supply chain challenges that continue to hit the country.

“More shoppers felt comfortable visiting stores in person this Black Friday than in 2020,” said Brian Field, senior director of global retail consulting with Sensormatic Solutions, in a written statement. “One driver of this increased traffic could be ongoing supply chain challenges and shipping delays, which are resulting in consumers shopping earlier to ensure their gifts arrive on time.”

The rest of the 2021 holiday shopping season might be a strong one for physical retailers.

According to Sensormatic Solutions’ 2021 Holiday Consumer Sentiment Survey, 65 percent of U.S. consumers say they plan to shop in-store this holiday season for product-related reasons, like browsing for gift ideas or to see or touch products before buying.

Sensormatic Solutions predicts that the 10 busiest U.S. shopping days in 2021 will account for 40 percent of all holiday traffic. U.S. in-store traffic for this year’s holiday season is also expected to be down between 10% and 15% compared to 2019.

Governor Greg Abbott: Thousands of New Jobs to Come to Texas Through CBRE Group and Samsung

Posted on by Sarah

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the world’s largest commercial real estate services investment firm, CBRE Group, will bring more than 1,000 jobs to two Texas cities.

CBRE Group will invest nearly 30 million dollars in its Dallas headquarters, creating 460 new jobs. With more than a 13 million dollar capital investment going towards an operations center in Richardson, Texas, the group aims to create 550 new jobs.

“Samsung had many other options for this project…this is the largest foreign investment in the state of Texas ever.”

GOV GREG ABBOTT
The Samsung facility will produce advanced microchips for mobile devices, 5G, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI).

It is predicted that the creation of the Samsung facility in Taylor will create more than 2,000 technical jobs, thousands of indirect jobs, and at least 6,500 construction jobs. Construction of the facility will start early next year and production will start in 2024. Click to read more at www.fox44news.com.