Market Rebound—Too Much Too Fast? Trade Hopes Rise, CRE Activity Up, Fed Holds Back

Does the first U.S. trade deal signal an off-ramp to global trade tensions? Stocks surged on news of the UK agreement, but other indicators suggest the market’s ebullience may be front-running reality.  And the Fed knows it. Martha Coacher, Manus Clancy, and Dianne Crocker break down the signals that may impact CRE. From lighter cargo ships at the Port of Los Angeles to persistent uncertainty in corporate earnings, warning signs run counter to renewed optimism. The team flags a shift from April’s panic to May’s complacency, cautioning that investors may be underestimating looming supply disruptions and price hikes. Despite the volatility, CRE transaction activity continues—the latest LightBox CRE Activity Index rose to 109 in April, its highest reading in nearly three years. The pace has slowed, but momentum remains steady.  The team unpacks what’s behind the numbers, including valuations, broker activity, and some deal delays tied to equity gaps and shifting expectations. There’s plenty to dive into: Amazon and Nvidia are making bold office bets, Brookfield is raising billions to target distressed assets, and overall deal volume is holding surprisingly steady. And yes—if the coffee supply chain falters, Manus warns it won’t just rattle sentiment. It’ll be an anvil to the head.

00:16 Trade Deal Optimism

01:13 Market Sentiment Ahead of Reality?

02:50 Impact of Tariffs and Supply Chain Disruptions

09:04 Federal Reserve Decision: Groundhog Day?

11:41 LightBox CRE Activity Index Up

20:03 Noteworthy Sales and Green Shoots

28:16 Financing and Proof of Liquidity

37:13 Listener Comments

Have questions for the pod team? Send them to Podcast@LightBoxRE.com. 

www.lightboxre.com

Transcript

The CRE Weekly Digest by LightBox

Episode 45: Market Rebound—Too Much Too Fast? Trade Hopes Rise, CRE Activity Up, Fed Holds Back

May 9, 2025

Martha Coacher: This is the CRE Weekly Digest by LightBox, a firm transforming the commercial real estate landscape by connecting every step of the CRE process with comprehensive tools and data. I'm Martha Coacher with our experts Manus Clancy and Dianne Crocker. For the week, from May 5th to the 9th, the U.S. has its first trade deal, this one with the UK, and there are talks with China this weekend giving investors hope that there's an off ramp to the trade wars. Meanwhile, the Fed sticks to its guns and no surprise, there's no change on its key interest rate until there's more clarity. And Manus it's not really economic news, but there is a new pope. 

Manus Clancy: A lot going on this weekend. I did see the white smoke coming out earlier before we started recording this, so that'll be something interesting. I guess for centuries and centuries, the Pope was always from Italy, but now since then we've had one from Poland and one from Argentina and one from Germany. So it's become a much more global event. That will be interesting to follow.

But as for the economic news, it was nice to see a trade deal get announced with the UK. Hopefully progress will be made with China over the weekend. Maybe there'll be some good news next week, but I think we live in a very interesting time and let me kind of unravel this and get your thoughts on it Martha and Dianne. I did feel that in the weeks after April 2nd, the panic got severe and we were quite oversold. We were oversold on equities to be sure. I think the NASDAQ at one point was down more than 20%. All the major indices were way down and we started to see risk premiums shoot up as well as treasury yields shoot up. I thought that was a terrific time to deploy capital for both fixed income and for equities. Now I'm starting to feel a little bit the other way that we are under panicked, if that's a word. That we are now seeing, I think the NASDAQ is now back above where it was April 2nd. We've seen spreads come down quite a bit. Treasury yields for sure have been somewhat lower than they've been. I think we've gone from overly panicked to overly complacent right now, and I do feel that maybe this doesn't apply to CRE as much as it does to the broader US economy, that we are probably facing a quarter of disruption. Disruption in supply chains, disruption in the availability of goods, which will inevitably lead to higher prices. I do think that at this point people are not really taking into consideration the fact that even though this may only last six weeks, this disruption of people deciding whether to put cargo on ships, whether or not to order cargo, I do think this will lead to a quarter of annoying product shortages and price hikes, and I think currently the market may not be taking that into consideration quite enough.

Dianne Crocker: I see what you're saying, Manus, I feel like a lot of the people that I'm talking to are more nervous now, certainly than I heard in March and February. And I think the reason is the pervasive news, and you hit on some of the headlines already. There's talk of corporations pulling back their spending. There's talk of lenders possibly pulling in the horns on debt capital. And I think that not only makes it difficult, if not impossible to forecast what your pipeline might be in the next few quarters, but I think it's kind of lending itself to this palpable shift and sentiment to more caution than the bullishness certainly that we saw in January and February. So maybe I'm talking to people that are more skittish than the ones that you're talking to, but I think everyone's becoming aware slowly with every headline that we're entering this limbo and until we do have some clarity on tariffs and until we do know a bit more about when our whether rates will come down I think the market will be uber cautious.

Manus Clancy: I should be a little bit more precise with my words. I don't think that we're looking at a period like we saw right after Covid or during the great financial crisis or around the time of Silicon Valley Bank where people stop lending and there's true panic coming in. I do think that the markets continue to function and that includes CRE and maybe even CRE outperforms the broader markets. But I do think when you see the uptick in stocks, the downtick in risk premiums over the last couple weeks, I think the market is exposed right now for those negative headlines, which may hit us in six weeks, which say, the price of coffee has doubled, or I can't find my Keurig cups anymore, or I went to the Five Below and the shelves were bare. They have no inventory anymore, that, and we all know this, that sometimes those negative headlines about eggs move the market. They make people think that bad days are coming, price hikes are going, supply costs are going through the roof. It certainly had a lot to do with Democrats not winning the last presidential election. This narrative that everything is higher over the last couple years. And I do think that there'll be a window at some point between now and September where people start talking about, I can't find this, or I can't find that, or my iPhone is twice the cost it was a year ago, things like that. And I don't think that that slams the brakes on the economy, but I do think it makes people a little bit more measured at some point in the next couple months in terms of equity values, bond prices and so forth. 

Dianne Crocker: That'll be the slap of reality where we move from the abstract vision of tariffs to, oh my gosh, I always ordered this online from China, and now they won't even ship here. You know, that slap of reality and our industry runs on sentiment. So those kinds of slaps of reality will start to impact behavior, and not just in commercial real estate, but in other economic segments as well.

Manus Clancy: Let me tell you Dianne, it will not be a slap of reality, it'll be an anvil to the head, like Wile E. Coyote, if the coffee supply chain is disrupted, if people can't get their coffee, and I'm pointing that finger right at myself right now. If I can't get my two cups of coffee every morning to get my myself out of first gear, we're in trouble. There's gonna be a lot of pain. 

Martha Coacher: I'm right there with you. You know I'm a coffee addict. I do think you're hitting on a really good point, Manus. You saw stocks surge today, and a lot of it was in reaction to the UK deal and Trump himself urged stock buying today. So I think you're seeing the reaction to today's headline and the news, but to the other point you're making, we're starting to see information about the tariff impact, especially on shipments to ports in LA and apparently the ships that are now pulling into the harbors from China are the first that are subject to the tariffs that were announced in April. And those ships are a lot emptier, some 35% to 50% emptier than previously, and so that means less stuff on the shelves. We also saw that retail sales in April, according to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor was higher in April and there was some discussion or belief that people were front running, purchasing in advance things that they knew they might need before tariffs took effect. So, you know, if you look at that process and in fact, follow through to corporate earnings calls where company after company was pulling its guidance, not providing a forecast until they got some more clarity, there's just more question and uncertainty than there is any certainty about what's gonna happen. 

Manus Clancy: You're spot on, and that's really what I'm talking about with these shortages. When you talk about a cargo ship being 35% full, I think that has to translate into the empty shelves that you're mentioning here, that there's no way around it. Well, as you were talking about this, I just had this image in my head of the old Martin Scorsese movies, right. The old organized crime movies where somebody would be giving somebody a fur coat. Where did that come from? Oh, it fell off the back of a truck. I wonder if the new term will be, oh, it fell off the back of a cargo ship. Right? That somehow there's gonna be a new version of this where somebody finds a way of sneaking things off of a cargo ship, getting them into a port and avoiding that 145% tariff. We'll have to see if that's the new Martin Scorsese line in his next crime movie. 

Martha Coacher: Let's take a couple minutes and talk about the Fed decision this week. Dianne, what's your take? 

Dianne Crocker: Fed Wednesday is always exciting. It brings back, you know, memories of last year where we waited until September hoping that every Fed Wednesday would lead to a rate cut. And reading the statement from yesterday it just kind of felt like Groundhog Day. You know, Powell's statement at my quick glance, seemed identical to what he said in March. There was nothing about the timing of a rate cut, which of course is what we all wanna know. It's what we all wanted to know last year too. But it, it certainly seems like the Fed's job is kind of shifting from that last mile to the 2% inflation, to kind of keeping an eye on any potential damage that tariffs might bring to pricing levels. And I think the quote that he said, which jumped out at me was, there are cases where a rate cut might be appropriate, and there are cases which it wouldn't. And I kind of laughed when I read that sentence because I thought that's basically a sentence about nothing. But what else can he say? You know, it's like he's driving through the fog on a dark, rainy night without wipers. And I'll close by just sharing my favorite quote of the week, which came from Claudia Sahm. She's a chief economist at New Century Advisors and she used to work at the Fed and she said, you'll love this Manus. The Fed now has much less of the masters of the universe vibe going on right now that the central bank is very much at the whim of the policies coming out of the White House and they have no choice but to be reactive but that visual of Powell as a masters of the universe from these sci-fi films that my son used to watch struck me as very funny. 

Manus Clancy: I agree with that. They are definitely the dog being wagged right now for sure. But I have to throw in an early shout out. Normally I hang on those press conferences and what Powell is saying, but yesterday I took the afternoon to play golf with one of our long standing listeners. For those that know Martha and I going back, we've been doing podcasts since early 2020. This gentleman, Joel R. and Dave W. came up to South Carolina from Georgia. We played some golf yesterday, talked about the markets, and it was a completely wonderful day playing golf with some of our listeners, talking shop, getting out there on a beautiful, upstate South Carolina day, was a great way to spend the afternoon, but it did mean I missed Powell's remarks yesterday.

Dianne Crocker: Well, you didn't miss much Manus. I think you made the right call going golfing. 

Martha Coacher: Shifting to something we've talked about for the last few weeks, the LightBox Data Dive, and folks who are listening today are gonna get a peak at the CRE Activity Index for last month. And it's important because it is the first reading of the index after the tariffs.

Dianne Crocker: The CRE activity index in April Rose slightly, so it's at 109, and that's up just a little bit from 107.9 in March. So that was reassuring to see the month over month gain was just 1%. So that was a notable deceleration from what we saw in February and March. So a little bit concerning, but not surprising. And the index, if you haven't heard about it before, measures changes in activity from properties being listed for sale to the environmental due diligence that's typically conducted before deals or before commercial loans, and then appraisals that are demanded by lenders either for refis or new loan origination. It was certainly good to see that commercial real estate activity across the board was still advancing in April, given everything that we've already talked about here today. So we're still seeing momentum, but definitely a shift in terms of the stance, more cautious capitals moving forward, maybe a little bit more slowly, maybe a little bit more selectively, a little bit more cautiously. And I'll add also that it's possible and likely that a lot of the activity that's reflected in our data for April is on transactions or loans that were already in motion and maybe less affected by what happened on the tariff front in April and the swirl of uncertainty that we all already talked about here today. So I do think that what we see in our May data and early June will be very telling. But I did wanna share something that we saw on LinkedIn over the past couple weeks. It's from a multifamily lender. He's out of Dallas-Fort Worth. His name is James Ang, and he posts interesting, he calls it the Diary of a Lender. And an observation that he made, which I think dovetails nicely with the April index, is he has seen more BOVs or broker opinions of value done in the first quarter by listing brokers than ever, but he's seeing it's hard to get to the finish line on deals because of things like the gap between buyers and sellers, because a borrower doesn't have his or her equity lined up and so that's making deals fall apart in the 11th hour after they've already had the environmental done and they've already had the appraisal done. So I guess the message there, Manus and Martha, is if you've got your own equity opportunities could be coming for those deals that fall apart at the 11th hour.

Manus Clancy: I think your remarks are spot on. I think the word that you used, deceleration was perfect. That it was very encouraging that the numbers went up, very in agreement with you on the fact that a lot of the deals that closed were kind of on the tarmac in March. So April may be not the best measure of this. May may be better, but the fact that it was still up 1% over a month that was incredibly volatile. And let's not forget, by the time we got to April 30th, we were four weeks post the announcement of tariffs. So some of those deals would have come into play after 4/2, at least some of them. The fact that we saw that 1% uptick, I thought was quite encouraging. It's encouraging that the wheels haven't fallen off, that people are still conducting business. Loans are being made, appraisals are being procured, properties are being listed. Listeners on this know me for five years, that I am a glass half full guy, that I think better days are always coming, that the markets are always ready to rebound and take off. And the fact that April of 2025 wasn't April of 2023 after Silicon Valley Bank failed, is a very, very encouraging sign for me for CRE. 

Martha Coacher: This week we also released some of our market snapshot reports, which are a deep dive into ESA activities as well as listings. Dianne, give us a quick review of what those look like.

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, the one that's coming out is the third one, and that is on capital markets. So I'm deep into the property listings data across LightBox platforms. So these are brokers or sellers listing properties for sale. And as I looked back at the first quarter, there was a sharp increase in property listings, and they in fact reached a three year high. So for the first time, since I believe it was June of 2022, our index closed at 173.3. When I think about the first quarter and how it unfolded on the property listings front, there were kind of two distinct phases. One was that we saw a renewed sense of optimism. There was a lot of hope for double digit growth forecast for lending and for transactions. And then by the end of the quarter, we started to kind of see the 10er change, but all of that happened as property listings kept coming into the market month after month after month. So when I look back collectively at the first quarter, I think the total listings data relative to the historic benchmarks that I mentioned, it really sets a high bar. And I think whether we see that in May, June, July will really depend on how a lot of the factors that we've already talked about play out. You know, what's the duration and scope of the tariffs? What impact will they have on inflation and borrowing costs? What happens with rates and how will the market kind of adapt to it? I think tariffs will affect different segments of our industry differently, so there's definitely a lot to watch. 

Manus Clancy: One softer piece of data that I wanna bring up. We do track transaction data here. Those that are announced publicly via press releases, those that are reported in the news, and we do database all this information here at LightBox, and starting a couple weeks ago after 4/2, we started to say, how does the number that's getting reported each week change week over week? We started to to see if there was a discernible difference in the number of reported transactions, sales transactions that closed before 4/2 and after 4/2. And the good news is that the number is staying quite steady. We haven't seen this fall off, and when you're talking about things week over week, the numbers that we looked at last week would have been from late April and early May, and that was in line with what we had been seeing earlier in January, February, and March. So I thought that was an encouraging sign. Again, kind of a softer read on market activity, but I thought it was an encouraging one. 

Martha Coacher: And before we shift into some of the noteworthy sales, let's do our, did you know for the week, Dianne. 

Dianne Crocker: Sure. And so the did you note builds on the property listings data. Looking at how property listings shook out by asset class, multifamily led the charge. So multifamily properties in Q1 accounted for one third of all listings and volume surged 132% over Q4. There were no asset classes that declined year on year, so that was a plus. And then I also wanted to mention that in office. We saw the second consecutive quarter of listings going up year over year. So office listings were up 10% in the first quarter versus the first quarter of last year. So that's I think a positive trend that really reinforces what we've been talking about here on the pod, that sellers are getting a little bit more comfortable putting offices on the selling block or in some cases it's a distressed situation where office assets need to move.

Martha Coacher: We're gonna be covering this data and much more in an upcoming webinar, LightBox CRE Market Snapshot: CRE in the Crosswinds. The team is going to do a review of Q1 insights and near-term forecast, and we've got a great panel lined up. That's May 28th. The time is 11:00 AM Pacific Time, 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Manus and Dianne of course, will be on. Of course we have a couple of additional panelists, Victor Calanog from Manulife, and Cindy Cooke from Colliers, so I think that's a dynamite lineup. I'm looking forward to listening to what you guys say. Before we go into noteworthy sales and talk about some of the green shoots in transactions, let's cover a couple of stories that were positive stories in the office space. 

Manus Clancy: I wanted to touch upon something that Dianne said about offices and some of that momentum picking up. I saw two headlines today, which I thought were really, really interesting. One is a little bit more boilerplate than the other. BlackRock announcing that it was going back to a hundred percent in office in New York, so they become the latest firm. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan had already said this was true. That was kind of the boilerplate headline I saw, which now BlackRock is gonna do the same, but the one that really got my attention, and this is from Crain's New York, Aaron Elstein wrote the piece, Vornado forecasts sharp increase in office occupancy. Here's the headline sentence, I'll read it verbatim in quotes. "Vornado Realty Trust predicted its office towers will be as crowded as before the pandemic in “a couple of years” – a bold prediction for the developer that, filings show, has more vacant space than at any time since Covid-19." So I thought, talk about a, putting yourself out there with a bullish remark that runs against the grain. Vornado saying that they're gonna see numbers of occupancy north of what they had in 2019. What do you think about that Martha and Dianne? 

Dianne Crocker: I think it's a bold statement, I agree with you, and it's interesting. I've seen a number of stories including one in Manhattan talking about the success of Office-to-Resi projects and the fact that a few years ago people were saying, oh, it's too complicated. Oh, this won't get widespread traction. And now there are more and more projects like that happening. So what if that Vornado quote is correct, and we wind up with not enough office to go around because towers have been converted to multifamily. 

Martha Coacher: Let's shift into sales and we've got some green shoots that are positive signs. 

Manus Clancy: Yes, couple of interesting sales this week. We saw in Culver City, California, Fenway Capital paid 130 million for a property at 6181 Centinela Avenue. This property is also known as the Entrada. Lincoln Property and Broad Street Principle along with Goldman Sachs sold the three-year-old development for that nine figure total of $126 million. That was a nice sale there. There was one that was reported this morning, which I thought was very, very interesting. This comes from Commercial Observer, Andrew Coen, with this reporting that 590 Madison in Midtown Manhattan could be sold for what would be the highest price for an office property since 2022. They're expecting a bid of 1.1 billion dollars. One of the bidders is going to be State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. Other bidders are expected to be Blackstone, SL Green, Tishman Speyer, RXR, and others. Just another positive sign that not all office is created equally. A $1.1 billion price tag for a Midtown Manhattan office would be something to really crow about if that comes to pass. 

Dianne Crocker: Manus, it's interesting on that Silicon Beach story. Silicon Beach encompasses parts of Culver City, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Playa Vista, all these areas southwest of downtown LA. It's being called a veritable Silicon Valley of Southern California. So it's starting to attract hundreds of tech companies from small startups to conglomerates like Google and Amazon. So it's interesting that the tech craze is hitting the regions beachside location on LA's West side. Sounds pretty good. 

Manus Clancy: That was a great segue, Dianne, because I have two more tech stories to bring up, which I thought were both really quite encouraging for the market, for those that listen to us over the last couple of years, tech, huge takers of space between 2015 and 2022. We saw in 2023 and 2024 a retrenchment, Microsoft, Amazon, letting leases expire, not renewing space in Seattle and other major regions. Facebook cutting back its space in New York City quite a bit. It was an additional headwind added to work from home that made office such a toxic investment over the last couple years. But we've started to see that turnaround, and two stories caught my eye this week. Number one, Nvidia paying $120 million for a 10 billion office campus in Santa Clara. This is a 550,000 square-foot property that they expect to do more AI development and it's at 2348 and 2350 Walsh Avenue. It's across the street from the firm's headquarters, the San Jose Mercury News with that story. The other one, which I really, really loved was Amazon is going to buy a 600,000 square foot office in Midtown Manhattan from RFR. The property there is the 600,000 square-foot office at 522 Fifth Avenue. The office is vacant. SL Green had bought the debt. The expectation was that this was a loan and property looking at a huge loss to be sold at a big discount. And here comes White Knight, Amazon riding in to purchase the building and to take a distressed asset off the market. So Nvidia on the west coast, Amazon on the east coast, each putting a lot of capital at work, adding to their footprints in those two cities. 

Dianne Crocker: I see a trend emerging with this week's podcast. I think any listeners in the office space are probably feeling pretty good right now, especially if they have clients in the tech space because the Nvidia deal that you mentioned came three months after they struck a deal with Sobrato organization. They bought a 500,000 square-foot office campus in Santa Clara, so they're definitely on a tear in the office sector. And that property that you mentioned that Amazon bought in Manhattan, the history of that, believe it or not, is that it was a Class B property that came online in 1896 as a hotel. So that's where it started. But just that year is staggering to me, but it is Manhattan and those buildings have been there for a long time.

Manus Clancy: We have to be careful about the office space. We can't get too exuberant here. Office is still the big laggard, still seeing things trade for 30 cents on the dollar. We're just kind of pointing out some green shoots, some bright spots in this market that point out that there is a little bit of momentum. Vornado's remarks certainly quite bullish there, we feel good about that. But it brings me back to the old line in Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield, where he got a C on an exam when he went back to college and he goes, look at me, I'm in the top three, right? It's still a C Rodney, but glass half full that he got the bronze medal in the grading and that's kind of where we are with office, right? It is still trailing the pack when it comes to valuations and prospects, but there are pockets of better news with return to office, with some decent sized sales with the AI and tech advances that you mentioned, Dianne, in Southern California. So I just don't want people to think that plowing every dollar you have into the office market would be wise. That's not what I'm trying to say here. 

Martha Coacher: We will have a couple brown spots in our lawn here when we get past the green shoots. Let's talk about some financing stories that we've seen and each of them has a specific theme. So let's start with capitalizing on Market Dislocation award goes to Brookfield Asset Management.

Manus Clancy: Certainly it does. They have raised multiple billion dollars for a new real estate fund. They did that in the first quarter. It's one of the largest ever quarterly fundraising takes, and it seems to be earmarked for buying distressed commercial property. So, we do see in certainly the office segment but there's some of this in multifamily, there's some of this certainly in the mall space as well, where prices are selling at deep discounts. And Brookfield Asset Management going out, raising $6 billion to deploy, to buy assets at deep discounts to either refurbish in some cases for these offices to put some capital in to re-tenant them and to restore their rent roll. Or in other cases, perhaps to transition these from offices to residential or some other better case use. We'll see how that goes. But people will remember, Brookfield was facing redemption issues a couple years ago, they were selling assets, they were reducing their footprint, and now they're turning around and raising more money at this point. Anyway obviously there's very many different arms of Brookfield. The right hand often operates differently than the left hand, but here looking to raise money to deploy into distressed commercial assets. 

Dianne Crocker: At a broader level Manus, there was a stat that I read that private real estate funds raised 57.1 billion in Q1, and that was up from 32.5 a year earlier. So Brookfield is just, you know, the biggest example of that, but there's definitely been a potential uptick in this kind of opportunistic or value add capital raising in a way that we haven't seen over the past few years. So they're definitely getting ready to unleash capital and commercial real estate. And to the point that we talked about before with the diary of a lender, deals that fall apart because they don't have their capital lined up will give the advantage to companies like Brookfield and other private real estate funds that are getting ready to pounce. 

Manus Clancy: I've been saying for about six months that I felt like the office market had bottomed. I didn't think it was gonna make a U or a V-shaped recovery, but I thought evidence of this was that properties were trading, even though there might have been 70% off, they were trading and getting multiple bids. With this capital raising, they should get even more bids, which should mean those low prices should firm up. There should not be another leg lower, which is encouraging for those that are trying to mitigate risk and losses in their lending book. So hopefully that comes to pass. 

Martha Coacher: Two more stories, Dianne. The strategic repositioning story involving substantial renovations and rebranding, and then another one that shows signs of liquidity. Let's start with the Witkoff Group. 

Dianne Crocker: Sure this one was interesting. The Witkoff Group and Access Real Estate obtained $100 million from Apollo Global Management to refinance a 200 acre luxury golf resort. It's in West Palm Beach, Manus, so perhaps that's an area where you can golf in the future. And it was interesting because it was a distressed asset. The developers purchased it. It was nearly completed, but it was financially troubled. It's called Banyan Cay Resort, and it had faced foreclosure and bankruptcy. So last year, the joint venture purchased it for an undisclosed amount and in 2023 the investment firm won a $94 million foreclosure suit while the hotel was still under construction. It underwent significant capital improvements and upgrades. Interestingly, the property was rebranded. They're going after a luxury market segment, and the golf club became the first new private club in West Palm Beach in 25 years. The initiation fee... $300,000. 

Manus Clancy: Are we going to get LightBox to sponsor that? I could certainly vouch for the fact that I think I could get a client or two to come out there. Would they then therefore sponsor such a purchase? 

Martha Coacher: Not the $300,000 I could tell you that. One last story, a story that gives us a good sign of liquidity in the market. 

Dianne Crocker: This one was interesting. It was Haussmann Development secured a $40 million loan to refinance a newly completed multi-family development. It's in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Acres Capital provided the loan. It's a 76 unit project. It began leasing this month with full lease-up slated for June, and the debt from Acres replaces a construction loan. But what was interesting to me is that when they went out to the debt markets in early 2025, they received over 10 offers for bridge financing, and Acres was the winner. So you know, it demonstrates how liquid the market is in Brooklyn for lease-up projects and that debt capital's out there. There's a growing trend of sustainable mixed use housing projects in Brooklyn that are looking to meet demand for affordable living options for environmentally friendly living options in the area. So that I think was a very positive thing to see. 

Manus Clancy: What stands out for me with these sales, or I should say these financings, is how often the financing is coming from a non-bank lender these days, Ares, Acres, Apollo. More and more, the headline is not either a community bank or your traditional regional bank doing this financing, it is these Ares of the world putting this capital to work. And the good sign is, to your point, Dianne, that there are a lot of pockets out there and the pockets seem deep. There are a lot of people that are willing to take on these bridge loans, mez debt, so forth. I'm not sure we were there two years ago when rates were shooting up and some of these CRE CLO lenders were a little bit tapped out, but that market seems back now and that's a good sign. It provides more liquidity. 

Martha Coacher: Despite these positive signs, alas, there are always some bare spots and we'll cover a couple of those stories. 

Manus Clancy: Yes, it does seem to be all about Brookfield these last 10 minutes or so. The two that I'll bring up, one is in Los Angeles. There's a report out of The Real Deal that Adam Rubin and Andrew Shanfield who owned Carrollwood are in escrow to buy EY Plaza, Ernst and Young Plaza in LA for $130 million. This is a property that was once valued for three times that amount, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt on it in addition to a $25 million mez loan on this thing. This is the second of two such properties to sell at deep discounts. The other being Gas Center Tower in Los Angeles. So some evidence of the destruction in value in what was once real class A property in Los Angeles. The other one that I wanted to talk about, Brookfield handing back the keys on the 4.6 million square-foot Houston Center. They had bought that property for 875 million in 2017. The property lost a major tenant, LyondellBasell, which vacated 360,000 square feet in 2023, which started the pathway downward. And then law firm Norton Rose Fulbright left another 350,000 square feet last year. So, two negative stories for the office market to offset some of those green shoots that we gave you earlier today. 

Dianne Crocker: That'll balance out the glass half full kind of tenor from earlier on the podcast. But it was interesting to me with that story Manus, that despite investing in significant renovations, you know, there's a huge lobby upgrade, there's a big plaza upgrade, fitness and conference centers, that that complex still faced substantial tenant losses. So I guess that points to some of the trouble that Houston's office market is facing, especially in the central business district, which I think I read, experienced a negative net absorption of more than 400,000 square feet just in the first quarter of this year. So it'll be interesting to see if they're successful in backfilling vacant spaces and revitalizing the complex. 

Manus Clancy: I don't enjoy nearly as much being the womp-womp guy as I do being the way to go, glass half full guy. I don't like the womp womp stories half as much as I do the real positive ones. 

Martha Coacher: More confetti. 

Manus Clancy: More confetti.

Martha Coacher: Couple shout outs that we had in the last couple weeks. John R. is a listener on the debt side out of Seattle. He loved The Henley Group podcast that aired last week on Reddit. He said the podcast is one of the best, so thank you John for saying that. And Manus, he says, you're not alone in watching the late night Asia and Europe market coverage, and you ready for this? He says, you are his spiritual CRE father figure. 

Manus Clancy: That is wild. How do you like reply to that? My first instinct is to say, John, fasten your seatbelt, everything in moderation, make good decisions, right? The things that you would say to your 16-year-old, I don't know how old John is, but it was an incredible compliment. Goodness, I'm moved by that remark. Thank you so much for listening, for writing in and for those kind remarks. It's just made my day.

Dianne Crocker: Spiritual father figure is great. It makes me think of you as Miyagi Manus from Karate Kid.

Martha Coacher: Yeah, exactly. And a couple more. Rick L. on LinkedIn liked the podcast as well, so thank you for that. And of course, Holly Neber, who is a perennial fan, had given us a shout out at a recent event. 

Dianne Crocker: And I'll add to that, that Holly will be our guest in June. So we look forward to having her on. And thank you for the shout out, Holly. 

Martha Coacher: And Manus I know you're the spiritual CRE father figure for some, but this weekend is Mother's Day. Dianne, what are you looking forward to? Not cooking, brunch? 

Dianne Crocker: Not cooking. I will say I have a longstanding tradition of running a 5K with my sister, so this will be our 13th year of doing a 5K in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It's all women and it's a very hilly course, and then we go out to get brunch afterwards, so that lets my family off the hook as far as cooking for me.

Martha Coacher: Manus, I hope you're not getting a card at CVS. 

Manus Clancy: I hope to have a card. We talked about supply chain issues. You know what if I get there and there's no cards left, I don't know. What if there's no chocolate? Do we get chocolate from here? Or the cocoa beans sourced from South America? I don't really know. I better get on it though I'm running outta time. 

Martha Coacher: You're running out of time, and with that we'll close thanks to our producer, Josh Bruyning. Please join us every week as our LightBox team shares CRE News and Data in Context. You can listen on any of your favorite podcast channels and send your comments or questions to podcast@LightBoxre.com. Thank you for listening. Happy Mother's Day and have a great week.

Manus Clancy: Let's go.