Freddie Mac to finance midsize single-family home rental landlords | Crown Castle to offer stock to finance $7.1B Lightower deal | TPG RE prices IPO, begins trading on NYSE
July 20, 2017
The daily source on REITs and real estate investment
Freddie Mac is gearing up for a financing deal in the single-family home rental market, but unlike Fannie Mae's $1 billion loan for Invitation Homes, Freddie Mac plans to focus on midsize landlords. It hopes to have its first deal out within 90 days.
Crown Castle International announced a public offering of $4.75 billion worth of common shares and convertible preferred stock.
It plans to use the proceeds to finance its proposed $7.1 billion acquisition of Lightower.
TPG RE Finance Trust priced its initial public offering at $20 per share, the low end of its $20-$21 range. The mortgage REIT, which is backed by private equity firm TPG, began trading today on the New York Stock Exchange.
Investors need to play defense in the stock market with expected global uncertainties and market volatility in the future and a stock market that is fully valued, experts say. There are several strategies to try, including diversifying into alternative asset classes such as REITs.
Rexford Industrial Realty bought a six-building industrial center called Rancho Pacifica Park outside of Compton, Calif., for $210.5 million. Rexford has made a number of acquisitions recently after a stock offering with a $150 million capacity.
Condor Hospitality Trust is buying three Marriott hotels in Texas for a total of $59.6 million. The seller of the 366-key portfolio is Bedford Lodging.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities' latest mega-campus life science development is in North Carolina's Research Triangle. Unlike other million-square-foot complexes it has built, this one will focus on agriculture technology instead of diseases, says CEO Joel Marcus.
The market for medical office buildings is "very robust" as capital pours into the sector from REIT and foreign investors, says John Thomas, president and CEO of Physicians Realty Trust. The REIT has slightly more than $3.5 billion in assets and made nearly $250 million of investments in the first quarter of this year.
Retailers are investing in robots and automated technology to do a growing number of routine tasks from counting cash at Walmart to polishing silver jewelry at Tiffany & Co. Walmart, which says new back-office automation frees up employees for customer-facing jobs, has also filed a patent application for facial recognition technology that gauges shoppers' moods.
The Federal Reserve will be challenged by conflicting economic data when it meets next week to discuss interest rates. Unemployment reached a 16-year low in May, while inflation figures have been weak for the past three months.
