• Suit alleged breach of standard of care, gross negligence
• Jury instructions unfairly prejudiced defendant, court says

A commercial real estate firm and one of its attorneys won an appeal to reverse a jury trial’s verdict that made them liable for malpractice because they failed to timely assign someone as a responsible third party in a fraud lawsuit, a Texas appeals court ruled.

Real estate broker Henry S. Miller Commercial Co. was represented by Newsom, Terry & Newsom LLP in a lawsuit over damages from a property sale that fell through after buyer James Flaven disappeared. The company later sued the firm and attorney Steven Terry, claiming that they must pay the full $12 million in damages because Terry failed to designate Flaven as a responsible third-party until 24 days before the trial.

The case has been up to the Texas Court of Appeals, Fifth District, twice. This most recent time, the court recognized some of the language from the jury’s instruction as coming from its first opinion on this case but said it was given to the jury out of context.

The excerpt said that the attorney didn’t have to prove that fraud was committed to designate the buyer as the responsible third party, making many jurors think that the attorney’s reasoning for designating the buyer so late in the case was flawed, the appeals court said Wednesday. Click to read more at www.bloomberglaw.com.

In a major deal in the Midwest commercial real estate industry, Minneapolis-based Northmarq will purchase Stan Johnson Company, a real estate brokerage and advisory firm that focuses on investment sales across multiple asset classes.

Northmarq’s acquisition will also include affiliate debt services company Four Pillars Capital Markets.

“This is an important milestone for our growing platform, as our company now has investment sales professionals across the country that can service investors across all major asset classes,” said Jeffrey Weidell, chief executive officer of Northmarq in a statement.

“Adding this talented group of real estate professionals further establishes Northmarq as a full-service investment sales and capital markets platform,” Weidell said.

With the acquisition, Northmarq will have nearly 1,000 commercial real estate professionals working across its investment sales, debt/equity financing, loan servicing and fund management operations.

Founded in 1985, Stan Johnson Company has expanded from a Midwest-based CRE company to a full-service investment sales company. It specializes in net lease investment sales and other areas including multi-tenant retail, office, industrial, self-storage and healthcare sales.

Stan Johnson Company has more than 100 brokerage professionals across 16 offices in the 10 states of Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Texas.

During its 40 years, Stan Johnson Company has closed nearly 7,500 transactions exceeding $45 billion in sales volume.

“Our vision has been to build a very special, diversified real estate company with a singular focus on providing the highest level of service to our valued clients,” said Stan Johnson, founder and chief executive officer of Stan Johnson Company, in a statement. “Our professionals will be able to offer our clients greater investment opportunities, advice and product offerings by leveraging the size, scale and established expertise of the Northmarq brand.”

Since the Pohlad Family purchased the company in 1999, Northmarq has grown steadily through a series of acquisitions. In early 2000, the company added 25 offices and 200 employees and has continued to expand through frequent acquisitions of both regional teams and national companies.

The integration of Stan Johnson Company’s brokerage services into Northmarq is the culmination of the company’s move into investment sales, which began in 2018 with just six offices focused on multifamily properties. Prior to the Stan Johnson Company acquisition, Northmarq grew to 22 investment sales offices in 13 states.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Yesway’s current focus on rural site selections goes all the way back to knowledge shared by the late Lonnie Allsup, founder of the Allsup’s convenience store chain, which Yesway acquired in 2019.

Allsup scouted new sites by flying his airplane over highways in Oklahoma, west Texas and his home state of New Mexico, looking for clusters of motor traffic surrounded by wide open spaces, according to Tom Brown, director of real estate acquisitions for Yesway

“Lonnie would put his store at the intersection of the Interstate and the state highway and buy all the open land surrounding the store for defensive purposes,” Brown said. “He was one of the first people in the convenience store business to build larger stores with food and grocery items. In recent years, it was easy for him to build a bigger store because he owned all the land around it.” Click to read more at www.csnews.com.

A building boom. That’s what the U.S. apartment market is seeing this year, according to the latest research from Yardi Matrix.

In a report released in late August, Yardi Matrix said that construction crews will bring 420,000 new apartment units to the United States this year. That’s a 50-year high. According to Yardi, the last time apartment completions surpassed the 400,000-unit mark was in 1972.

And three Midwest markets are expected to rank among the busiest 20 major metropolitan areas this year when it comes to new apartment units: Nashville, Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The New York metropolitan area is projected to deliver the most apartment units in 2022, beating out Dallas-Fort Worth for the top position for the first time since 2018. Overall, developers in half of the country’s top-20 metropolitan areas are now on an apartment building spree, with these metros expected to hit their five-year highs in new multifamily construction this year.

“The construction industry is finally returning to pre-pandemic levels of activity but is still being hampered by three familiar challenges: labor shortages; material costs and availability; and supply chain issues,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, in a written statement.

What’s behind this construction boom? Yardi Matrix points to pent-up demand for multifamily units across the country. This demand has only risen as many renters hold off on buying homes as inflation and interest rates rise.

In the Midwest, Nashville ranks as the hottest market for new apartment construction. Yardi Matrix says that this Tennessee city will deliver 9,620 new aparment units in 2022, ranking it as the 13th busiest new-construction market.

Chicago will see 8,573 new apartment units by the end of this year. That places the city as the 16th busiest in terms of new multifamily construction. Expect 6,266 new apartment units in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, making it the 19th busiest new-construction market in the country.

Texas, as usual, was well-represented. Yardi Matrix reported that the Dallas market will see 23,571 new apartment units in 2022, placing it second only to the New York metro market. Austin ranked fourth on Yardi Matrix’s list, with 18,288 new apartment units projected to be delivered here during the year, while Houston ranked fifth with an expected 17,759 new apartment units.

Yardi Matrix said that the Houston market will see the highest number of apartment completions that it has seen in the last five years. Austin climbed three positions on the Yardi Matrix list this year to inch past Houston.