Jobs Jitters, Tariff Twists & CRE Activity Late-Summer Slowdown

For the shortened week ending September 5, The CRE Weekly Digest team unpacks a turbulent few days in the markets. A federal court ruling that could unwind $500B in tariffs sent bond yields soaring, only to be reversed by disappointing labor data that pushed rates back down. With job openings now below the number of job seekers for the first time since COVID, investors are parsing signals of a labor market slowdown while equities stay frothy at record highs. Manus Clancy warns that the Fed may move slower than markets expect, leaving stocks vulnerable to disappointment. Dianne Crocker highlights the Fed’s Beige Book, which shows “50 shades of beige” across CRE but points to strength in data center construction and flight-to-quality office leasing. LightBox’s CRE Activity Index logged 104.8 in August, down from July’s highs but still above 100 for the seventh straight month. The team also breaks down a flurry of transactions: New York office towers trading at steep discounts, industrial portfolios commanding premium demand, and multifamily remaining the most active sector with $35B in Q2 sales. Plus: San Francisco’s AI-driven office rebound, McDonald’s rebooting value meals, and Manus’ annual (and very biased) Super Bowl prediction.

LightBox Fundamentals: Transforming CRE Appraisals with AI-Powered Data Extraction 

Join us on Wednesday, September 10th at 2:00 p.m. ET for a 30-minute launch overview of LightBox Fundamentals—the new AI-powered platform that turns appraisal PDFs into structured, decision-ready data with zero manual effort.

00:36 Market Reactions to Tariff Ruling and Jobs Data

05:41 Bond vs. Equity Markets: A Deep Dive

07:24 Federal Reserve Dynamics and Market Predictions

09:48 CRE Market Trends and Insights

25:08 Spotlight on Sales Transactions

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

www.lightboxre.com

Transcript

The CRE Weekly Digest by LightBox

Episode 62: Jobs Jitters, Tariff Twists & CRE Activity Late-Summer Slowdown

September 5, 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 shortened week of September. Second to the fifth, investors are watching jobs, data, and what that can mean for a rate cut this month.

But markets feel frothy and bonds aren't buying it. Manus August gave us a tale of two markets. Equities kept rallying while bond yields stayed stubborn. Leaving CRE to read between the lines, how are we gonna see this market play out? 

Manus Clancy: So there's a lot to peel back from the last couple days, and I do wanna get into that dichotomy between the stock market and the bond markets.

But let's rewind to last Friday because a lot has happened over the last few business days. Last Friday, we had a federal appeals court judge. Rule rule that tariffs are illegal, or most tariffs are illegal, that led investors to jump to the conclusion that tariffs would have to be rebated. And what that did was it sent bond yields, soaring.

On Tuesday when we got back from Labor Day weekend, why would that be? Well, the first point is that if we flush the $500 billion in tariffs that have been collected back into the economy, that's gonna be a real sugar high for the market in the same way that. The writing of COVID checks was in addition.

Whatever progress we made on the deficit from collecting this money would be reversed. So bond investors got very jittery on Tuesday and sent bond yields up markedly higher and stocks sold off. That headline lasted for about 12 hours, and then we pivoted to the jobs market, which gave us a lot to think about in the other direction.

Headline number one was the Jolts number, which showed that job openings for the first time since COVID were. Below the number of people looking for jobs. It had been reversed for about five years where there were more jobs and people looking for them. This seems like an inflection point. This seems like the kind of thing that shows weakness in the jobs market could lead to a depression in wages.

And an uptick in unemployment that was followed today by the A DP number that was equally disappointing. Fewer jobs were created according to a DP than were predicted. That double whammy of negative employment news reversed. The jump in bond yields. So what we had over the last 24 hours was a real dive in the 10 year yield.

It is now about 4.17% down from 4.3% two days ago. So there's a lot of moving pieces going on. We don't know how the tariffs are gonna be played out. We don't know if the Supreme Court is gonna take this on an expedited basis. We certainly don't know if there'll be rebates and the unemployment news. Makes us question, are we on the precipice of a recession?

Dianne Crocker: I think you're right on all fronts. Manus, I think, you know, post Labor Day, the market is, uh, is shaping up to be pretty hazy. You know, on the one hand you have equities are kind of celebrating the idea of lower rates. Everybody's kind of assuming that that's a given, and we're just a couple weeks away from that.

You've got bond markets that are waving the caution flag. Long yield, staying so high, you labor on top of that, that new tariff wrinkle, which I don't think anybody saw coming with the Supreme Court case and the possibility of huge refunds. I do have a hard time thinking that we'll get those huge refunds, but I'm not on the Supreme Court.

But all of that I think makes confident near term bets really, really tough to make. And. The labor market, I think, you know, is, is worth watching very closely. We had Ryan Severino on, we had Rebecca Rocky both kind of pointing to the labor market as the most important tea leaf that we have to watch. And so certainly the, the jolt report this week that a DP payroll numbers really point to, to trouble in the headlines.

Given that, like you said, it's the first time in four years that there are now fewer open jobs. Than there are job seekers. So, you know, that's, that's fueling a lot of real concern and valid concern that the labor market is not just cooling, but that it's stagnating and it gets worrisome when, when companies are getting more cautious about hiring and true story.

I spent Labor Day doing a lot of cleaning and I actually stumbled on a Magic eight Ball, which was probably from my parents' house when we sold it a few years ago. And I gave that Magic eight ball a shake and the replied. It came up was reply hazy. Try again later. And that seems, uh, very relevant to the market right now.

Manus Clancy: Well, when we stick on those rebates for a minute, I have this vision that if there's $500 billion to be rebated, it will come down to all of us having to fill out oodles and oodles of paperwork to prove that we bought some cans of soup our only to get rewarded with a 10 cent off our next purchase on 16 ounces of Campbell's chunky soup.

I don't know. That's, that's where I think we are. Uh. We are headed should rebates come? Isn't that the way it always works with, with things like this? But I do wanna talk about this dichotomy between the bond markets and equity markets that Martha teed up at the beginning. We put out our end of August research yesterday, and we talked about how the two markets are sizing things up very differently.

The equity markets are for perfection right now. We have all time high. Index prices, the Nasdaq s and p, and Dow at or near all time highs. We have near all time high PE ratios, and there seems to be no discounting at all for the fact that tariffs will weigh on earnings that more terrorists could be coming and that.

Interest rates could stay higher for longer. All of that is being completely dismissed by the equity investor. They are counting on the fed cutting rates and that bringing long-term yields lower, but the bond markets are not buying this. That 10 year yield has been between about four 15 and four 60, let's call it for most of the year.

They are not talking about a 3 75 tenure, so you have really smart people on either side of the equation seeing this market very differently, and I do believe that because of the tariff uncertainty that the Fed will be slower to move than faster. Accordingly, that means rates will probably stay higher for longer, and the equity markets, in my humble opinion, are doomed to be disappointed.

Sometime in the next couple months. 

Martha Coacher: We do have some wild cards in the mix though, Manni. We've got the backdrop of the ousting of Fed Governor Lisa Cook and what that could mean. And we've got, uh, Stephen Muren, who's Trump's pick to join the governing board. With confirmation hearings going on currently, and he's been someone who has been vocal in his criticism of the Fed's independence in some of its policies.

Manus Clancy: Well, I think the Trump administration has to be very careful what they wish for. They are winning this war of attrition little by little it seems. By retirements of Fed members, by the president, able to appoint new people. If Lisa Cook is removed, that would give him another vote there. So he is tilting the tenor of the Federal Reserve.

In his direction, but let's not lose sight of the fact that almost exactly a year ago, the Fed surprised us with a 50 basis point rate cut, and what did that do to long yields? That sent a tenure up from about 360 3 70 up to about four 70, a hundred basis point rise over the next three months. I do think that there is this possibility that.

Trump could win the battle and lose the war. He could get his way. He could get 75 or a hundred basis points worth of Fed funds relief. And yes, that would help with the deficit because we have so much debt to roll over, but he may lose the war if that results in people being. Concerned that we reinflate and people being concerned that we're gonna create a bubble market once again.

So we'll see. But I think September, October, they're known for their volatile periods. I think we're in for a very bumpy ride for the next couple months until some of this is sorted out. 

Dianne Crocker: You might be right, Manus, but I also think it's important to point out when you think about what happened with the tenure at the end of last year, we were also on the heels of a very contentious presidential election.

And I think as the market kind of pivoted from knowing who the next president was, to a lot of uncertainty about what that meant for policy, that was also a factor that drove the volatility in the tenure at the end of last year. In addition to the the basis point cut that we saw in interest rates in September.

Manus Clancy: So what does this mean if we pull it all together? You know, for me at least, and these are my opinions, I'm speaking only for myself and not for the three of us. Nor for LightBox, I am modestly bearish on equities. You know, I think the next move is probably lower. Although stocks are up today, I am neutral on long-term treasuries, you know, long dated yields.

I think that those will remain range bound, and I am modestly bullish. Not as bullish as I was in July for the CRE markets. And why do I feel that way? I feel that way because we have yet to see in the CRE markets valuation froth. We've seen a lot of activity. We've seen a lot of sales. As Dianne points out all the time.

We've seen a general uptick since January in terms of appraisals ordered due diligence Reports ordered more on that later. But we haven't seen people. Running to buy properties hand over fist with sacks of cash like they did in 2007. As long as we see measured acquisitions and modest price improvements, I think the CRE market muddles through and improves.

Modestly as it has been since the beginning of the year. 

Dianne Crocker: Manus, that's kind of in line with what just came out. I like to read the Fed's beige book. You know, it's not a page turner, but it's kind of a real time on the ground snapshot that's based on anecdotal reports across all 12 of the federal districts.

So you kind of get this mosaic of what's happening beyond just the national averages that we see in the prints. And I think the latest Facebook. Could be described much in the way that you just described your take on CRE. I saw that most of the 12 districts reported little to no change in economic activity since the prior beige book period.

I saw notations about flat consumer spending, tariffs being cited as a key headwind, and the BE book had about 36 mentions of commercial real estate and most of the sentiments. I'd characterize as flat to soft. There was one bright spot, which was in data center construction. Multiple district contacts cited a surge in AI driven construction, so that was a plus.

Elsewhere, they noted leasing activity. That remained kind of a flight to quality story, especially with Class I office and gateway markets, which we've been talking about quite a bit here in the past couple weeks. Also, that development was slow outside of subsidized or mission critical projects.

Especially in, in multifamily on the debt front, that debt capital is available selectively underwriting is still very, very conservative, which I think is smart at this juncture. There were some districts that were showing at least some modest growth in lending. So I think, uh, 50 shades of beige from the federal report this week.

Manus Clancy: Well, it's funny, I find that any type of federal report is a heavy slog in terms of reading, right? It's kind of the last thing you wanna leaf through in the morning in, in terms of enjoyment. You know, I, I'd much prefer to start my day with the New York Post Sports page, but you know, the, the guy who came up with the name for the beige book had to really want people to not read his material.

Not only did he make it dry. He gave it the most uninteresting name of all time. But I have to say, I'm a little surprised at your remarks, Dianne, and I have to admit, I didn't read the Beige book report before this podcast, but it does reflect very differently than the way I feel. I. You say the markets are softening.

You say that in the beige book, they're talking about capital supply being somewhat constrained in certain markets. That surprises me. It seems to me that capital right now seems incredibly available even for the most capital intensive projects. Did that remarks surprise you at all That, that they're seeing some softening.

Dianne Crocker: A little bit, and I think the right answer there just speaks to just how nuanced our market is, you know, that certain deals are gonna pencil out. I do think that lenders in general are cautious. The Fed Book is based on banks and certainly there are other types of lenders out there who are being very, very active right now in extending debt capitals and reading the base book.

You just have to be mindful of, of what the source is and the fact that the lending universe is differentiated based on which, uh, lending sources that you're talking about. 

Manus Clancy: The best thing that you've said just a moment ago I thought out of this, which is very comforting for me, is the fact that underwriting remains very conservative, right?

It underscores for me, you know, usually the. Frothy period begins with banks starting to loosen the reins a little bit, allowing borrowers to take more leverage loosening the terms of loans. And when you combine the fact that we haven't seen a big runup in valuations with the fact that banks are being conservative, I think that forms a really nice foundation for the rest of the year.

Going into 2026 that we're not looking at something akin to the equity markets, where we're looking at peak valuations, stretched lending, hygiene, if you will. None of that is, is happening, and I think that bodes well for the market. 

Martha Coacher: Before we zoom into our own gauge, the LightBox CRE activity index, we did see a couple of stories also that gave us an on the ground view of what's happening in commercial real estate.

Dianne Crocker: A couple points that I saw this week related to office in particular, Manhattan Leasing is up 20% month on month in August, and it's now on pace for the best year since 2019 if it's sustained. And that's based on a new report from Collier. So at the end of August, the average asking rent for Manhattan offices was 74.

Dollars per square foot. That was an increase of 1% from July, so relatively flat. And San Francisco's been in the news a lot lately too in terms of an office recovery, and that's thanks to AI driven demand, which is really reviving. Leasing in San Francisco, and that obviously has been a very beleaguered office market since before COVID on Metro that's really plagued with high vacancies.

So the amount of office space now in San Francisco that's being leased is rebounding pretty strongly this year, and by some accounts it's back. To pre pandemic levels. Part of that is because some companies are requiring employees to work more downtown. A lot of it has to do with major AI firms that are increasing their office demand and and need to be in San Francisco, Houston-based real estate investment manager hinz launched a city review process of a planned.

1,225 foot tall office tower at the site of the old Pacific Gas and Electric headquarters, and that would be the tallest building on the West Coast and just 25 feet shy of New York City's Empire State Building. So a lot happening on office. 

Martha Coacher: While we're on the topic of San Francisco, I did wanna take a minute to give a listener a shout out.

He is someone who has been a long time listener of our podcast. Really loved the Rebecca Rocky podcast, which you had referenced earlier, Dianne. He said he thought Rebecca's perspective on the timing of the cycle and the approach to vacancy was very insightful. He agrees that we're still in the early innings of distressed sales.

So he gave us a thumbs up for the compelling dialogue and to keep it up. So thank you for listening. 

Manus Clancy: I love that. I love the reach out and, and I enjoy hearing from all of our listeners when they reach out to us via LinkedIn, uh, email or uh, Twitter. It's, it's a great, uh, way to converse with people, but I think even though Dianne gave us some nice green shoots, some bright spots.

As it pertained to the New York and San Francisco office markets. Sadly, I'm gonna reign on that parade a little bit, perhaps like the the listener did by saying we're in the early innings. I think those are the outliers. I think that AI is driving demand in San Francisco, and I think that there's a more aggressive return to office in New York than in other places.

That's helping those markets recover faster. But I think when you look at other markets, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Atlanta, I think you have an awful lot of wood to cut there in terms of excess supply. So I agree with the early innings remark. I'm really, really happy that we're seeing progress in New York and San Francisco.

Hopefully that will extend to. I certainly feel like there's an awful lot of recovery to be had still for other major cities. 

Martha Coacher: As promised, we're gonna give you the CRE activity index. Dianne, give us the headline, 

Dianne Crocker: August Print. This month's light box CR activity index just came out and August's read was 1 0 4 0.8 that was down a bit from our revised July number of one, 11.8, and June's multi-year high of one 16.2.

So on the surface, you know, August looks like a bit of a meaningful drop, but. In my mind, it's really a combination of two things. One is there's always a typical kind of late summer slowdown. We see that almost every year, and combined with that, I think is, is really a layer of the growing caution that we just talked about.

The market's really in a position to be digesting a real mix of economic signals, some of which we've already talked about here. We've got inflation that's still running just under 3%. We've got new data just out this week and more coming tomorrow. That will probably point to a labor market. Softening Corporate earnings have been uneven and tariff uncertainty.

You know, it's still with us in a really big way. And even with those headwinds, the index has now logged, uh, seven straight months above 100. And if I peel back the layers of the onion behind that August reading are three barometers commercial property listings across LightBox platforms. They were down about 12% month on month environmental due diligence, which we measure by phase one environmental site assessment activity.

It was essentially flat in August, but it was still strong. And then. Thirdly, lender driven appraisals declined 7% as, uh, rate uncertainty and, and tariff chatter weighed on lender's underwriting. So I think, you know, Manus and Martha, the real question in my mind is what happens in September. Historically, we typically see activity bounce back after the summer lull, I think this year that rebound.

Could be amplified if the Fed does deliver its first rate cut of this cycle. We'll see. You know, I think August probably showed the market maybe catching its breath as our listeners hopefully did too on summer vacations this year. But I think the next reading in early October is gonna be really, um, a key gauge of whether this is just a blip or kind of a sign of a more kind of sustained tapping of the brakes.

What do you think Manus? 

Manus Clancy: You recall, I'm on record as saying that by the end of the year we'll be at 1 25. I think that's the prediction I made in, in June. Mm-hmm. A little bit apprehensive about prediction. It's perhaps I was a little bit bullish there, but a prediction is a prediction and I stand by it.

I, I think there's two interesting pieces of data. Below the surface that you referred to here, the 12% drop in listings doesn't concern me at all. People just do not list properties in August. They know that their audience is in the mountains or at the beach, or you know, at some family vacation. Nobody's listing properties in late summer, and so I completely expect that to bounce back in September.

In fact, it might more than bounce back as people. Release inventory that they've been sitting on for the last six weeks. The other side of the coin, however, it's a little concerning that appraisal activity was down because the refinancing of properties should not really take a lull in the summer as much as listings should.

Right. The, the machine, which is. Completing sales that were announced earlier in the year, refinancing properties, that being down 7%, that's a little bit more concerning to me, but it, it wouldn't shock me at all if 30 days from now we're talking about a nice rebound in all these numbers for this September reading.

Dianne Crocker: I'd say mannus. Of the three, the one that's most interest rate sensitive is the appraisal number. So if we do see a rate cut in September, I think we'll for sure see the lender driven appraisal number go up. And then secondly, in terms of property listings, what I did notice were kind of weekly changes in the, so the listings in the second half of August kind of built on the first two weeks of August.

So in total, the second. Half of August listings were 5% higher than they were in the first half. So that could be our early signup, just what you were talking about, that we could see a bounce in September as sellers get more willing to put properties on the selling block after a vacation month. 

Manus Clancy: So I'm gonna put you on the spot here.

I don't know if you have the data in front of you, but in the past, what has been the typical dip? In August, this, this month, it was a seven point dip between July and August. Is that big? Historically speaking? And similarly, what kind of rebound have we seen in September? If, if you have that data in front of you, 

Dianne Crocker: I'm never far from the data.

Manus. Last year, the dip that we saw from July to August was four points. So this year is seven, so it's a little bit more pronounced. I'll go back one more year. The dip in the prior year was just a two point dip, so it is definitely more pronounced this year. And then the second half of your question, two years ago, the August to September jump was eight points.

Last year it was more pronounced at 11. So if it jumps 11 or more now, that would bring us closer to June's high point for this year. 

Manus Clancy: And just outta curiosity, what was the reading last August? How much higher are we in August 25 than August 24? 

Dianne Crocker: So August 25, as I said, was 1 0 4 0.8, and last August it was 91.9.

Manus Clancy: So solid recovery up. 14, 15% over the course of, uh, of a year. That's, that's good to see. Thank you Dianne. Of 

Martha Coacher: course. Let's do sales transactions. We're gonna spotlight some deals in office, industrial and multifamily. Manus. Let's start with office. A deep pocketed JV paying cash for a sixth Avenue tower. 

Manus Clancy: Yes, Martha.

The big sale this week, uh, in New York was 1177 Avenue of the Americas. Which is Sixth Avenue to most New Yorkers. That was sold by Silverstein and Calsters for almost 600 million. The Buyers, Norge Bank and Beacon Capital with Norjes Bank, taking 95% ownership of that property. Uh, the asset is a 47 story, 1 million square foot tower between 45th and 46th Street.

So that's kind of Bryant Park slash Rock Center. Area. It is a disappointing comp, not the worst comp, but disappointing. Silverstein and Calsters bought this property in 2007 for a billion dollars, and it just goes to show that even in the best markets like New York, like we were talking about before, offices still trading for big discounts.

We saw a similar boutique office acquired. This is the office property above. Sax Fifth Avenue Flagship in Midtown Manhattan. That property sold, if I remember correctly, for 250 million this week down from a previous comp of about 700 million several years ago. So it just goes to show what I was saying before, that while activity has increased, we're still seeing these really, really disappointing valuations and, and nowhere more often than in the office segment.

Dianne Crocker: Yeah. And the ones in Manhattan make the big headlines, you know? And each of these trades really becomes kind of the new comp. And it will shape expectations for any owners or lenders or investors who are looking at Recapitalizations, who are looking at refinancing, who are looking at sales in the New York City office market.

It also underscores that there is demand for quality office. Um, but it has to be at, at new kind of more realistic price points. And the first story that you mentioned, the Silverstein one. Um, the new owners are planning to keep it as office, so that won't likely be, uh, the next headline for another office to resi conversion in New York City.

Manus Clancy: So this is far from the only stories that we're seeing like this. There was a second one, a third one I guess you would say. At this point. This came out today, Savannah is buying 4 44 Madison Avenue. This just came out from the real deal. Uh. Just moments ago, the real deal was Rich Bachman broke this story.

That $50 million sales price to Savannah is down from 314 million in 2007. So you're talking about, uh, an 85%. Discount to the two, 2007 sales price. It also represents a short sale to resolve a loan that Wells Fargo made around the same time, $120 million loan that was made in 2007. So if you think that that 11 7 7 property sale is a one-off, it just isn't.

You're gonna see three or four of these certainly every week in New York, and you're probably gonna see one or two per month in every smaller city around the, around the US for the foreseeable future. 

Martha Coacher: And moving on to industrial, we saw MetLife investment management unload a Southern California industrial portfolio.

Manus Clancy: Yes, MetLife selling that Southern California industrial portfolio, $166 million. The reporting there by commercial observer and what caught my eye on that particular story was the parenthetical below the headline, which says, uh, the Greater Los Angeles industrial market is humming along, which is good to hear.

The story reflects the fact that tariffs, increased costs of goods, et cetera, have certainly lifted. The uncertainty level in the industrial segment, but at least as far as Southern California is concerned that market continues to just outperform. I 

Dianne Crocker: mean, there was a really big run up in warehouse values.

So I think stories like this really highlight that there's a lot of portfolio rotation going on. You have institutional owners who are trying to recycle capital from some of their more mature holdings. You know, in this case, the fact that three different buyers stepped in for coastal infill assets across LA and and San Diego really kind of underscores that institutional capital is out there.

You know, and they're looking for well located, stabilized industrial properties, even if they have elevated vacancies. 

Manus Clancy: There was a separate article in Commercial Observer that noted particularly with in, in terms of industrial, that industrial sales. Hit $34 billion for the first half of 2025. That puts it on pace to about equal the dollar amount of sales that we saw in 2024.

So a leveling off in terms of sales velocity, at least in the industrial segment. But that's still 15% above where we were in 2023. The article also pointed out that in place rents. Reached 8.63 bucks per square foot nationally in July, which represented a 6.1% year over year increase in terms of per square foot rents, which probably is the reason why people wanna rotate into this, Dianne, that rents continue to go up in the industrial segment even as volatility, uncertainty prevails.

Martha Coacher: And then turning to multifamily, we saw a number of stories. Multifamily continues to see a number of transactions. These take us to Palm Beach County, Ventura, and outside of Chicago. 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah. And um, in multifamily, Martha apartment transactions in the second quarter were up with 1,584 properties. Changing hands.

That's up 12% quarterly and annually, so double digit growth in the apartment sector, but apartment sales volume was down 14% year over year two. 35.1 billion, and that's well below the $54.7 billion quarterly average over the past five years. And I think with virtually every segment of commercial real estate right now, every market tells a different story.

And there are a lot of different news headlines out there that really kind of paint that picture. One multifamily deal that really jumped out at me was with related fund management. They just bought a. Palm Beach multifamily property in Delray Beach and Palm Beach County. It is a 292 unit apartment community.

They bought it for 116 million from Rin Residential Group, and they financed it with a $59 million Freddie loan via that runs to 2035. What do you think about that, Manus? 

Manus Clancy: Well, I think that the. Apartment market, even though the numbers are not above that five year moving average. I think that the apartment market is the dog that's always hunting, right?

We see dozens of nine digit sales every single month in the apartment segment alone, and that spans a very wide geography and a very diverse buyer and seller group. So I think that that's the. The real headline there. Um, but going back to your story, I just wanna make sure that we give credit where credit is due.

That 12% rise in Q2, the reporting there by Kristen Smith of Globe Street, and the data itself came from RealPage. So I wanna make sure that they get credit for the heavy lifting and pulling this data together 

Martha Coacher: and. Two more stories. One, taking us to a garden product in Southern California where we were already earlier with industrial.

Manus Clancy: Yes. This goes back to the point we made a moment ago, that diverse buyer group, diverse geography here, Raintree Partners acquired Cypress Point in Ventura for a hundred million dollars. It is a 268 unit, 28 building garden community. It spans 14 acres. It was built in 1990. The seller was the county center.

Which developed it and held it for 35 years. So the price there, 373 K per unit occupancy has been over 97% for over five years. And um, that's all I have. 

Dianne Crocker: I mean, Southern California, Southern Florida, those are both very, very hot multifamily markets right now. You know, there's a scarcity of, of well located properties and I think these are just examples of steady demand for large.

In this case a garden community, and this property, I think I read it was built in 1990, so it's not exactly new, but still very desirable. 

Manus Clancy: I know. We'll get into our nine figure sales in next week. We'll release. Research on that over the next couple days, but listen to this diverse group of sales of a hundred million or more in the apartment segment.

Just in the last couple weeks. San Diego, Richmond, California. Hollywood, Florida, Washington, dc. Boca Raton, Herndon, Virginia, Naperville, Illinois, Loveland, Colorado, San Francisco. That represents about half of what we've seen over the last. Two to three weeks in terms of a hundred million and up. And you could tell just by the, the litany of locations that I rattled off that this is a very, very broad market right now in the ability to attract nine figure investments.

Martha Coacher: Manus, you rattled off a bunch of cities and I do wanna call out the Naperville story 'cause I think that one's an interesting one. 

Manus Clancy: There we saw the highest price for a suburban Chicago apartment complex in 2025. The sale price there being 136 million. The Solomon organization was the buyer. The property is known as 1598 Naperville.

It's the highest price so far in 2025, as noted the seller there. FPA, multifamily, the sales price equates to about 212 K per unit. So. You know, Naperville not really known as the Beverly Hills of Illinois, and yet even there we're seeing the sale for nine figures and above. One last story on the apartment complex.

There was a report this week, and I don't have the, the name of the reporter here. I wish I did, but it says US apartments are on track to top 500,000 units in 2025. This would mark only the second year on record where 500,000 new units were. Put on the market. The New York City metro area is leading, no surprise there it is.

The biggest market. Sunbelt Metros, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami. Houston will account for over half of the national completions. So what's the takeaway here? The takeaway here on the optimistic side is that even after the doldrums of 2022 and 2023. Developers have been willing to put shovels in the ground and complete projects.

That's the good news. The bad news is growing inventory will keep a lid on rent growth in many markets. That is the downside of all this inventory coming on, especially in two successive years. 

Martha Coacher: And let me take a minute for a programming note. We have a webinar coming up, LightBox Fundamentals Transforming CRE Appraisals with AI powered data extraction.

That's Wednesday, September 10th at 11:00 AM Pacific time and 2:00 PM Eastern Time. We've got a couple of presenters in our product team and our enterprise accounts. It's gonna be interesting. Join the team for a 30 minute overview. It's an AI solution that transforms appraisal PDFs into structured decision.

Ready data. Manus, I know you've been involved in this project. What are your thoughts? 

Manus Clancy: It's interesting. I think I've read more appraisals over the last year than humanly possible and perhaps more than anybody else in the world. I don't know it, it's in the, in the thousands at this point, but for those that don't know, LightBox has two businesses that procure appraisals for banks.

We have over a thousand clients using this procurement service and. In a given month, we could have 10 to 20,000 appraisals coming through our systems in PDF form. With the rise of ai, with the improvements in large language models, our developers here at LightBox. Have come up with ways to digitize all these historical documents for banks.

Something that banks are eager to have. So what we're finding is banks, now that it is not cost prohibitive, are coming back to us and saying, we would like to see our thousand or 5,000 or 10,000 appraisals over the last five years digitized. And the webinar will go through that process. And we're excited about what we're offering that we are already.

Doing this for several banks and we expect to add many more over the coming months. 

Martha Coacher: If you're interested in getting registration information for that, visit our website at lightboxre.com or reach out to any of us and we'll be happy to send you a registration link. And one last stop just in time for football season.

Manus and Dianne McDonald's is bringing back extra value meals. The golden arches are rebooting value. You get eight combo meals priced to deliver 15% savings. So like for five bucks or eight bucks, you can, uh, enjoy a nice Big Mac or some other, uh, value meal of your choice during halftime 

Manus Clancy: well. I can't imagine anybody's happier that football season is coming back than I am.

I love my football, both college and NFL, and I will offer up the line that I've been saying since the beginning of time, and that is since 1972. I have picked the New York Giants to win the Super Bowl every single year, and I'm not gonna deviate this year. My selection for the 53rd consecutive year. The Giants to win the Super Bowl.

Dianne Crocker: You heard it here first folks. And then I'm wondering, Martha, with that little tidbit, are these McDonald's franchisees wondering if they'll be able to pay the rent with, uh, higher fry sales? 

Martha Coacher: Well, you'll have to stay tuned to our podcast to find out if there's some impact to the franchisees after a quarter or two.

With that, thanks to our production team of Alyssa Lewis and Josh Bruyning. Please join us every week as our LightBox team shares CRE news and data and context. You can listen on any of your favorite podcast channels. Send your comments or questions to podcast@LightBoxre.com. Thank you for listening and have a great week.

Manus Clancy: Let's go.