Commercial Real Estate

Deere & Company reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $1.379 billion, with Construction & Forestry sales up 18% and segment operating profit up 84% — a read on where U.S. building activity is actually concentrated.

U.S. construction starts rose 25.6% in July to a $1.79 trillion annual rate, Dodge Construction Network reported, but nearly $29 billion of the increase came from three data center and semiconductor projects. Residential starts remain down for the year.

Construction payrolls grew by 22,000 in July while total U.S. employment fell 23,000, according to NAHB’s state-level breakdown of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Illinois led monthly gains; Texas posted the largest decline.

The New York metro area counted 394,300 tech talent workers in 2025 against the San Francisco Bay Area’s 375,730, the first time New York has led in the 13 years CBRE has tracked the measure.

The National Association of Realtors has launched a quarterly Commercial Real Estate Demand Index measuring the economic forces driving demand across 306 U.S. metro areas, with St. George, Utah, ranking first nationally.

REDICO and newly formed real assets firm One Orchard have launched InfraMed Properties, a medical outpatient real estate platform starting with a 25-asset portfolio across 16 states and targeting more than $1 billion in investments.

Starwood Property Trust and Realterm co-originated a $672 million loan against a 78-property, 830-acre industrial outdoor storage portfolio owned by Stonemont Financial Group and Cerberus Capital Management — the largest financing yet in the fast-growing IOS niche.

Skanska will build four data centers in the U.S. Southeast under a $1.2 billion contract, one of its largest American data-center orders as the AI buildout accelerates.

Rexford Industrial Realty has agreed to sell a $1.2 billion Southern California industrial portfolio to EQT Real Estate, pushing the REIT’s 2026 dispositions to $1.5 billion as it recycles capital into its core holdings.

Goldman Sachs has agreed to acquire net-lease investment firm LCN Capital Partners for up to $410 million, expanding the bank’s asset management platform into sale-leaseback deals.

Trepp data shows domestic CMBS issuance reached $76.2 billion through July 2026, with office leading all sectors and data centers now large enough to track as a distinct securitized asset class.

Unifi, the REPREVE fiber maker, has agreed to sell two Yadkin County, N.C. real estate assets for about $60 million in gross proceeds, aiming to reduce debt and optimize its operating footprint.

The U.S. Lumber Coalition praised the Trump administration’s Section 232 tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, arguing they protect domestic forestry jobs, as separate data shows softwood lumber prices jumped 7.4% in July.

Broad Creek Capital acquired The Crossing at Palm Aire in Sarasota, Florida, the first deployment from its Multifamily Advantage Fund’s second close, which drew European family-office capital.

AvalonBay Communities and Equity Residential completed their merger Aug. 17, forming Vivmark Residential, a roughly $51 billion apartment REIT that begins trading Aug. 18 with a newly named executive team.

Vantage Data Centers is exploring a stock listing at a roughly $100 billion valuation or a sale, Reuters and Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the matter — a deal that would be the largest data center IPO on record.

Bank of America pledged $250 billion over 18 months for U.S. infrastructure financing, including data centers, energy generation and transportation, addressing power bottlenecks that have slowed data center construction.

Houston-based SparrowHawk closed its largest deal to date, buying a 4.4 million-square-foot, 20-property industrial portfolio from EQT across six Midwest metros for just under $400 million.

American Healthcare REIT will pay $873 million for eight Kensington Senior Living communities in California, Maryland, New York and Virginia, per an Aug. 10 SEC filing, in a deal split across three separate closings.

1789 Capital, the investment firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, has closed its debut real estate fund at $1.2 billion, targeting more than $8 billion in Sun Belt housing, industrial and data-center development, Axios reported.

Residential building material prices rose 5.0% year-over-year in July, the fastest pace since 2022, as softwood lumber posted its sharpest monthly gain in over a year, NAHB finds.

Elon Musk’s planned 100 million-square-foot Terafab chip factory in Grimes County, Texas has drawn organized opposition from residents worried about traffic, water use and rising costs.

Multifamily mortgage originations rebounded sharply last year as 2,530 lenders participated in the market, up from 2,463 in 2024, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual survey found.

Shareholders of both REITs overwhelmingly approved the merger of equals, clearing the way for Vivmark Residential to begin trading Aug. 18 as one of the largest apartment owners in the country.