The photo of the poker chips was modified and the original photograph can be found here. The Pillars of Property Ownership Every real estate investor knows that property ownership is built on two pillars: equity and debt.  Equity is your investment with your own dollars, or dollars from friends and family.  This is also called a down payment.   The second pillar is debt, also known as loan, borrowing, and leverage.  In the current state of the market, there is stress between these two tectonic plates, which is leading to a reset to relieve this tension.  An impor ..read more

God Blessed Texas! Says the song by the band, Little Texas.  So, let’s count our blessings. Texas is the ninth largest economy in the world with the 2023 state GDP of $2.52-trillion, which is ahead of Italy’s at $2.3-trillion and just behind France at $3.2-trillion.  Texas is actually growing at a 4.5% rate, ahead of the U.S. economy’s rate of 2.5%. Texas – Top Business Climate in the U.S. Texas has been named the Top Business Climate in the U.S. and the Best State for Business for 19 straight years by the nation’s C.E.O.’s  And, to back that up, Texas is home to the most h ..read more

“Hooray” as we ring in the New Year 2024!  At this time of year we like to make resolutions on how we pledge to improve our behavior and our decision-making skills. However, we also need to remember that there is an old saying, “The more things change, the more they are the same.”  Which is to say, that we learn that the underlying fundamentals stay unchanged despite what may happen on the surface.   Expect the Unexpected   This was brought to mind as I was reviewing the book Same As Ever, by Morgan Housel.  His point is that we get used to a normal steady life, and th ..read more

Photo Credit Stackoverflow. At this time of year, we often pause and reflect on our lives and our families. Here I offer you a well-known poem by Rudyard Kipling that may help us to focus on the “golden mean” of moderation in a world that seems so divided now. Kipling wrote this to his son, but I feel it has special application to all of us, girls and boys, men and women in this Christmas Season. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can ..read more

Photo Credit Bloginnova. When Worlds Collide: How the Internet Has Disrupted Real Estate. While I was preparing a presentation to the San Antonio Executive Association, a club of 150 small business owners in San Antonio it hit me the tremendous extent that each real estate sector has been disrupted by the internet. Here’s what happened when worlds collide. Retail Retail This disruption began 10 years ago when E-Commerce struck shopping. Now we can place orders for goods by computer or cell phone. Many bankruptcies ensued: Sears, Kmart, Toys Us, Borders Books, Circuit City, Pier ..read more

Photo Credit CUTRER PHOTOGRAPHY. In the wise prose of Merle Haggard, “If we make it through December, everything’s going to be all right I know…” That is the way I see the commercial real estate market just now. Recessions Past At a lunch recently with another real estate broker and company owner, the question came up, “Is this going to become like the 1980’s?” My answer was “no”, because that was definitely the worst of times, and I don’t see this current episode as becoming that dark. Back then, the early 1980’s saw an enormous building boom, as Texas experienced a huge gusher in oil pr ..read more

Photo credit goes to Vagueonthehow We should call this the Summer of Uncertainty.  We are uncertain as to falling or rising inflation; uncertain as to higher interest rates, one of the largest factors in valuing real estate; uncertain as to true new values of real estate; uncertain as to whether we are now in a recession, or will be going into a recession or whether there will be no recession; uncertain as to when we will enter the Next Normal phase, or whether Uncertainty itself is the next New Normal.  Aarrgghh.   Let’s whip around San Antonio and see how our bit of the Univer ..read more

Photo is Public Domain.   In the June and July Reports, I tried to address Artificial Intelligence and the impact it may have on Commercial Real Estate as a whole.  This month I would like to look at AI’s impact on a very specific class of commercial real estate in San Antonio, and that is Data Centers (DC). These are the extremely complex facilities, absorbing enormous amounts of electricity from our CPS in order to provide warehouse space for gazillions of 1’s and 0’s, who need a very steady supply of energy, uninterrupted by tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires, e ..read more

Photo credit goes to Geralt. Artificial Intelligence (AI) In the past few months Artificial Intelligence (AI) has sprung from just “important” to “crucial” in the business news.  Everyone is discussing AI and how it will change our lives.  Will it eliminate your job or make your life better?  Before I touch on the probable effects of AI on commercial real estate, please allow me to better define the many terms involved in artificial intelligence.  My analysis has come from various internet sources, such as Investopedia, Amazon AWS and TechTalk Technically, AI has been aroun ..read more

This photo was captured by Austinrailnow.com Slammed by Bank Failures The Marketplace has been slammed in the past two months with four U.S. bank failures, then add Credit Swiss to that crowd.  No one knows if this is the worst of it, or if it is the “tip of the iceberg” or the “first shoe to drop”.    But there is no question that this rolling recession we are experiencing, began with the crash of the homebuilding market last year as interest rates doubled, buyers ran for the hills and builders hunkered down. However, from the beginning of the year homebuilders have m ..read more