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Weekly Brief – May 3, 2021

Although I could easily write about the ongoing themes of the red-hot residential market, the cratering retail sector, the hot industrial market, or the enigma that is the office market, this week the focus is on the future of the residential market.

The unknowns in the residential market are whether the trend to bigger homes and the flight to suburban and exurban areas will continue. The other unknown is what will happen to the residential inventory when the foreclosure moratorium is finally lifted. The numbers appear to be trending in the direction that we will have a bump in foreclosures and not a tidal wave. If that is the case, the inventory of homes on the market may continue to be constrained through 2022. Unfortunately, new construction does not appear to be a savior for the inventory issues, as the pandemic has caused raw material prices to skyrocket. So the answer to our constrained inventory of homes for sale continues to evade.

All of that leads to the conclusion that, contrary to my intentions, I guess I am writing again about the red-hot residential market. Until the inventory constraints are lifted, the market appears poised to remain a serious seller’s market, and prices seem destined to rise.

Black-Owned Commercial Real Estate Firm Adds Diversity

The commercial real estate industry is historically homogeneous, populated largely by white men in the executive ranks, even in a city like Detroit, where the population is more than 80 percent Black. The Greenwood Commercial Real Estate Group adds some diversity to the homogeny. The firm is named for the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma,  commonly called Black Wall Street and at one time a thriving Black economic hub before it was destroyed in 1921 after the arrest of a young Black man for the purported “assault” of a 17-year-old white girl. James Pitts, head of the Atlanta office of Greenwood, believes that Greenwood CRE will help Black real estate professionals break into commercial real estate.

Virtual Evictions Threaten Constitutional Rights

Across the country, eviction hearings have moved to the computer because public officials don’t want to risk exposure to sick tenants arriving for court appointments.  Lawyers have seen virtual eviction hearings that take as little as 30 seconds. Tenants often don’t have access to computers and have to dial into the hearings with their phones. Many courts only accept documentation online, and tenants who try to submit their records in-person are turned away. Many argue that tenants’ due process rights are violated by the technological and financial barriers of the eviction proceedings.