Curated daily by our industry experts. Stay informed on how tech is shaping the real estate industry with these important headlines.
NATIONAL REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
Co-working provider WeWork keeps making the news lately, first with the announcement of its planned IPO, then with the breakdown of how it plans to raise investor confidence in said IPO (through raising between $3 billion and $4 billion in debt), and now with the revelation that co-founder Adam Neumann has sold off approximately $700 million in equity in the company….
SWIRE PROPERTIES
JLL, Swire Properties and Ping An Urban Tech jointly announced the official launch of Chinese Mainland’s first corporate accelerator programme that focuses on property technology (“PropTech”). Named “UrbanLab” (城越), the initiative aims to foster and further develop promising tech companies in the dynamic Chinese PropTech ecosystem, with the goal of creating innovative technology solutions for the real estate industry.
BISNOW
CoStar Group, the commercial real estate data leader that has more than doubled its market value in the last two years, just unveiled a major shift in its research and sales efforts. The D.C.-based company is relocating 145 positions from D.C., Atlanta and other East Coast offices to Richmond, Virginia, CEO Andy Florance said on CoStar’s earnings call Tuesday.
TRUSS
Andrew Lisy Joins Truss as Vice President of Product to Grow Marketplace and Truss CRE Platform CHICAGO – Truss, an award-winning marketplace for commercial real estate, announced today that it hired Andrew Lisy as its vice president of product. Lisy will lead the product team at Truss, including its next-generation commercial real estate platform for brokers, Truss CRE. “Andrew’s track record leading strong user experiences at Groupon, along with his passion for growing a marketplace, …
WSJ
Like many startups in and around Silicon Valley, View Inc. believes its mission is to disrupt a stale product—in this case, glass. The company produces and installs “smart windows,” which adjust automatically to sunlight and glare. Each blue-tinted window pane has its own IP address and can be controlled from a smartphone app. In the case of a break-in when a window pane is shattered, its “SmartProtect” technology can alert the building’s security system and even call the police.
THE REAL DEAL
CoStar Group Inc. took in a record $59 million in sales bookings companywide in the second quarter, marking a 32 percent increase year-over-year and fueling a 16 percent growth in revenue. The bookings boost stemmed from a 122 percent surge in bookings on Apartments.com, the company’s rental listing platform, according to CoStar’s second-quarter earnings report, released Tuesday.
THE REAL DEAL
In “The Big Short” – the 2015 film about the financial crisis – actor Steve Carell plays a character based on noted short seller Steve Eisman, who made hundreds of millions of dollars betting against collateralized debt obligations laden with subprime residential mortgages.
CREtech
There are clear signs retail is undertaking a transformation like we’ve never seen before. The Financial Times’ article “Death of the high street weighs on landlords round the world,” reports that compared with last year, “rents agreed in UK shopping centres in the first quarter of 2019 dropped by a third,” and that in the worst affected centers rents “plunged by 40 to 60 per cent in just three months.” Meanwhile in the United States, “retailers have announced more than 6,900 store closures so f…
THE REAL DEAL
Proptech entrepreneur Ari Teman is facing Federal bank fraud charges after he was arrested earlier this month for allegedly cashing hundreds of thousands of dollars of counterfeit checks from companies that had worked with his virtual doorman business. Teman – creator of the GateGuard virtual doorman and SubletSpy, a company that helps landlords search for illegal Airbnb listings – is accused of depositing 27 counterfeited checks totaling $297,000 at a bank branch in South Florida, according …
TECHCRUNCH
WeWork chief executive officer Adam Neumann is already rich, but soon all of the early employees and investors of the co-working giant will be too. The business, now known as The We Company, has accelerated its plans to go public, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. WeWork is expected to unveil is S-1 filing next month ahead of a September initial public offering. WeWork declined to provide comment for this story….
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