There is a commonly held view that short-term rentals (such as the ones you might find on platforms like Airbnb) are bad for housing affordability because they take long-term rentals out of the market and they help to drive up property values. And there’s evidence… Read More
I am not counting on my nascent NFT collection to fund my retirement. At least not yet. But I have enjoyed collecting them this year and using them to learn about and get involved in the crypto space. Playing around and experimenting is one of… Read More
The postmortems surrounding Zillow’s exit from the algorithmic home-flipping business are starting to surface. Here’s an article from the WSJ and here’s Matt Levine’s take on it. The latter piece is very Levine-like and is called, “Zillow tried to make less money.” The obvious story… Read More
This article by Ryan Petersen is a good history lesson on how shipping containers came to be. Here is an excerpt: The idea for containerization came from a trucker, not a shipper. Malcolm McLean started out hauling empty tobacco barrels with his family in North… Read More
Blair Welch, co-founder of Slate Asset Management, was recently on Institutional Real Estate’s podcast talking about grocery-anchored real estate. In it, he talks about the role that this asset class plays in last-mile food logistics, why ecommerce might actually be strengthening its importance, and why… Read More
Here are some fascinating figures (from Environment America) about the growth of renewables in the United States: Between 2011 and 2020, renewable energy production (solar, wind, and geothermal) grew at an average rate of 15% per year. Assuming this same rate of growth, the US… Read More
Wired published a great article last week talking about “the 10,000 faces that launched an NFT revolution.” What they are of course talking about are the CryptoPunk NFTs that I think most people would agree are one of the “OGs” of NFT art. Initially minted… Read More
I was having a conversation this week with a few friends in the industry about the future of parking. We were specifically talking about Toronto, but I would imagine that much of this holds true for many other cities around the world. Here in Toronto,… Read More
So, this seems dumb. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors recently voted 8-3 in favor of rejecting a new 495-unit residential project at 469 Stevenson Street in SoMa. The property is currently a parking lot used by Nordstrom. Of the project’s 495 units, 73 were to… Read More
Density, which is a company that provides occupancy-tracking sensors, announced this week that it has just completed a $125 million funding round at a ~$1 billion valuation. This is their Series D. Official announcements, here and here. On a practical level, the company provides workplace… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 