Good morning, on Friday, BlackRock announced that it ended 2021 with more than USD10 trillion in assets under management. That's 13 zeroes, while also being up 15% from 2020 levels.
Yet shares of BlackRock, which also reported forecast topping earnings, fell more than 2% Friday.
Opposites are interesting and if you read on, you'll learn how municipalities and space planners are learning to embrace both sides too.
Here's to a great week ahead. ☕
😷↔1 metre↔😷
Housing Sales Velocity Up
Unsold housing inventory in India's top 7 cities fell to 32 months by 2021-end, when compared to a 55-month overhang in 2020-end, per Anarock.
This increase in sales velocity led to a major sales rebound in 2021, to more than 90% of the pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
💡 Housing inventory measured in months indicates the number of months it will take for the current unsold housing stock on the market to sell at the current absorption rate.
An inventory overhang of 18-24 months indicates good housing market health.
Google Doubles Down On Office Realty
On just another usual Friday, Google sent a crisp message to the real estate sector - 'pandemics will come and go but offices are forever.'
Context, Please.
Well they just bought the entire Central Saint Giles building in central London for USD1 billion.
Earlier they were tenants in the same building and with this purchase they plan a multi-million pound refurbishment of their offices.
Google has picked up numerous office sites across London - the latest being the St. Giles building - even as its own UK HQ is being built in the city.
More People = More Office
They’re not just renovating to look cool; they also want to hire more people in the UK, eventually taking the number to 10,000 employees from a previous 6,400 with another office being developed in King’s Cross, London.
Word On The Street
In a statement from the Finance Minister, Rishi Sunak, this investment is a vote of trust in the UK as a global tech-hub.
Real estate industry folks, check this out. 😍
🎙 “Our investment in this striking Renzo Piano-designed development represents our continued confidence in the office as a place for in-person collaboration and connection,” said Ronan Harris, vice president and managing director of Google U.K. and Ireland, in this post.
Royalty Free Time Travel
That is the entrance to Hyderabad, complete with bayonet carrying soldiers, important looking traders, labourers, and bovine powered, single axle pickup trucks.
Per social, photographer Lala Deen Dayal shot this in the 1880s and perhaps, on a Monday morning too.
Retail Stores' Revival Rests On Non Retail
The pandemic has been harsh to the wonderful checkout staff at retail stores. Even as brick-and-mortar stores are doing well in certain locations, retail's overall geographical performance has been poor.
Okay, But Who's Worried?
Municipalities are, as cash strapped cities and towns are under tremendous pressure to generate tax revenue in any way possible.
Historically, retail has been an invaluable source of tax revenue for urban municipal bodies, but the changing nature of retail has changed that.
To Make Retail Work, Look Beyond It
The over-stored nature of brick-and-mortar retail today requires that municipal, economic, community, and planning departments explore non retail real estate use to substitute the loss in retail sales tax revenues with other forms of taxes.
Balance The Retail Footprint
In so many cases the value of a property is not the retail asset; rather, the real estate asset on which retail has been located for decades.
Communities must (and without delay) find the highest-and-best uses for the real estate where retail is struggling and where retail properties are vacant, blighting the location.
Additional demand components from non-retail uses can strengthen the underlying value of the real estate and create a more vibrant community centre with a smaller retail footprint, but one that is more effective, realistic and sustainable.
A Sense Of Space Always Works
By incorporating residential, medical, or a new public library into a thoughtfully re-designed master plan for a struggling shopping centre/mall, the remaining market-viable retail can be revived, especially grocery, food and beverage, and personal services, by creating a strong sense of place.
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A court decision to uphold the cancellation of Novak Djokovic's visa on Sunday has shaken up the Australian Open draw on the eve of the tournament, per Reuters.
And, if Djokovic chooses to remain unvaccinated for COVID-19, his entry into other Grand Slams may also be affected as authorities tighten travel and border restrictions in the third year of a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people.
See you tomorrow. Have a good day. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai