Good morning, and welcome to another day of uncertainties, because:
- The stock markets across the world are not at their best behaviour.
- VC funds are acting like schoolkids who just saw the sandman.
- Rising interest rates are threatening property markets everywhere.
Thank heavens it's not Friday the… wait a minute. 😳
🔼 However, the market isn't as bad as the VCs are telling you and the market was never as good as the media was portraying it to be.
🏋️♂️🥛🥚
Was An Office, Now A Home
Guess what we overheard at the water cooler? Office buildings are being transformed into residential units.
And btw, it's not a blip or an outlier, this has been a pandemic-era trend throughout the U.S. and Canada too.
The Memo
🔄 The Wray opened in May 2021 in Washington DC as an 8-storied apartment building with 158 luxury units. Earlier, it was a U.S. State Department office.
🔄 Multiple such buildings in Washington DC have been transformed into residential towers (roughly 1,091 new additions).
🔄 The same trend is visible in Alexandria, Virginia, with 955 new housing units.
🔄 Ex-offices account for 41% of all U.S. converted apartments over the last two years. They should provide at least a quarter of 52,700 units expected to come up this year.
Why Is This Happening?
🔖 Hybrid and remote working along with reduced office footprints of companies.
🔖 A super heated housing market.
🔖 Most American business districts are located in the core areas of cities where housing demand is also the highest.
The Positives
👍 More revitalized and populated downtowns.
😅 Economic relief from the pandemic.
❇ Better utilization of empty spaces.
📉 Cooler housing markets, more supply, lower prices.
🍀 Reduced global carbon emissions by 80% in the construction segment through adaptive reuse.
Global City Gurugram: CM Steers Vital Meet
Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar chaired the second conference of the Global City project in Gurugram.
Key Points
1. The meeting was attended by leading realty players like Bestech, Godrej, DLF, Bharti Realty, Myhomes and Max Realty.
2. HSIIDC wants to create a CBD with futuristic tech companies, low-carbon infra and better liveability.
3. The State wants to attract the innovation industry while creating more jobs.
4. Vikas Gupta MD, HSIIDC and Chairman, HSIIDC, V Umashankar, presented their mixed-land-use blueprint.
5. The project will span Sectors 37A, 36B and 37B near the 8-lane Dwarka Expressway, covering 1,003 acres.
📌 Developers advocated universities and an International Financial Services Centre.
📌 They also want more flexibility in planning, innovative systems for payments and a single-window clearance method, plus an assurance that they won't be spontaneously jailed for infinite delays or financial irregularities.
Weekend Conversation Starter
What if you were to plonk a single microbe onto a lifeless alien planet, then come back a few billion years later to see buzzing rainforests, giant sea creatures, underpaid newsletter writers, and an advanced civilization flying rockets into space—all descendants of that one microbe.
Did that actually happen here?
🏆 Hi there philosopher of the weekend party, more microbial dope here.
Painting The Town Green With Timber Homes
Foresters have just had their Eureka moment, because they believe that a shift towards timber homes could relieve the global housing crisis.
Zooming In
🌳 The FII (Forest Industries Ireland) is advocating timber homes to cut greenhouse gas emissions and enhance housing supply.
🌳 This would cool property prices and improve affordability in turn.
🌳 Social housing would get a boost, with timber homes taking just 3-5 months for construction as compared to 8-12 months for regular homes according to another body IBEC.
Zooming Out
A tiny fraction of homes in the Republic of Ireland use timber. Scotland uses 70% in comparison.
Every such unit could save 12 tonnes of CO2 emissions as well, and Ireland could tap its natural resources to construct homes faster, compared to other European nations.
There are plans to move the Government to promote timber-based construction, while upgrading regulations to facilitate timber use in home building.
Given that buildings account for a whopping 38% of global emissions, perhaps what they’re saying makes sense after all.
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Just a couple of days ago, Thailand approved a tax break for real estate investment trusts (REITs) to boost liquidity for operators hit by the pandemic.
REITs buybacks will be exempt from tax and are expected to generate re-investment of about 30 billion baht (USD868.06 million) in the industry, said a government spokeswoman.
Have a great weekend. See you next week. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai