Rate Cut, Rising Optimism, and Early Thoughts on 2026

This week on The CRE Weekly Digest by LightBox, Manus Clancy and Dianne Crocker break down the real story behind the widely anticipated 25 bps rate cut that pulled long-term Treasury yields lower and triggered a sharp stock rally. As thoughts turn to the 2026 forecast, the hosts explore what Powell’s dovish comments signal for future rate policy, how CRE has settled into a “higher-for-longer" reality, and whether the “pig in the python” effect could slow momentum next year.

In the LightBox Data Dive, Dianne shares the latest Transaction Tracker metrics: 1,214 deals closed in November totaling $23.8B, a modest seasonal dip but still healthy activity across metros and asset classes. The month’s top three trades? All billion-dollar portfolios spanning senior living, mixed-use, and student housing.

The episode also spotlights land grabs for future multifamily builds, fresh development financings across the country, selective industrial trading by major players, and the widening K-shaped recovery in office—plus a fun slice-of-life detour into headline-grabbing flip of the iconic Friends building.

A week of rate relief, steady deal flow, and cautious optimism as 2025 draws to a close.

00:55 Impact of Fed Remarks on the Market
05:40 Commercial Real Estate Forecasts for 2026
07:40 NYU Real Estate Conference Insights
10:53 Reflections and Predictions for 2026
16:29 LightBox Data Dive and Market Trends
20:06 Development and Industrial Market Highlights
27:49 San Diego Office Market Challenges

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

www.lightboxre.com

Transcript

The CRE Weekly Digest by LightBox
Episode 76: Rate Cut, Rising Optimism, and Early Thoughts on 2026 
December 12, 2025

Alyssa Lewis: 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 Alyssa Lewis with our experts Manus Clancy and Dianne Crocker. This week the Fed cut short-term interest rates by another 25 basis points as expected, the move triggering a big stock rally. Yields on long dated Treasuries, drifted higher early in the week, but reversed course after Fed chair Powell's dovish remarks. The long-delayed JOLTs report showed a higher than expected number of job openings in October, but the rate of layoffs ticked up to 1.2 versus 1.1% in August. President Trump began his affordability tour in Pennsylvania. And 2026 CRE forecasts are starting to come out, largely bullish. Manus, what's your take on the week's market news? 

Manus Clancy: Well, the big one really was the fed announcement yesterday. There was some ho hum in the whole thing in that 90% of market watchers were expecting that 25 basis point rate cut, which is exactly what was delivered. But more important than the cut itself is always the remarks by Fed Chair Powell after the fact and yesterday's were quite dovish in terms of setting expectations for future rate cuts. He started by saying that don't be fooled by some of the latest job numbers. I think he was probably referring to the jolts where we saw a big uptick in job openings. That gave a big sigh of relief to job seekers, I suppose. But he said, don't be fooled that the labor market is bumpy right now, which was code, in my opinion for we may need rate custom future to avoid a employment driven recession. So that was one of the dovish remarks. And he also mentioned that inflation seems somewhat under control right now. So between the two, he set the stage for what seems to be a benign fed outlook, at least for the next couple months. Now, of course we have a Supreme Court case going on in which President Trump is trying to replace a Fed voter. We also have the near term possibility that we have a new Fed chairman in the next couple months, which could change everything, of course. And we'll see how that plays out. But in the meantime, what we have right now is a market that has taken Jerome Powell's remarks positively. Stocks were up bigly yesterday afternoon. We saw the Dow up 500 points. We saw the S&P 500 up three quarters of a point yesterday, and we saw treasury yields come down, long dated treasury yields come down from about 4.18 on the 10 year to about 4.11 this morning. So it was a great conference for those that want lower rates, and I think that was the big news for the last couple days.

Dianne Crocker: Manus. I love that you used the word bigly, you know, and I think clearly the cut wasn't a surprise. As you mentioned in an article by Erik Sherman at GlobeSt, he noted that the story wasn't the cut so much as it was this deepening division in the Fed, that the nine three vote was the most descent within the Fed since 2019.

So, you know, I think this week the fed cut was good news. It wasn't game changing, obviously another modest rate cut. It might help at the short term margin, mainly for floating rate borrowers for the near term refis. But you know, what we've been seeing in the LightBox data and what we've been talking about all year, is that CRE has you know, kind of largely settled into this higher for longer rate reality. And it's good, you know, especially now for the reasons that you just pointed out the Fed is, you know, they're, they're still driving through the fog with incomplete data, so they're not really eager to push rates dramatically lower anytime soon and what I got from the comments yesterday was there's, you know, there's almost no appetite for further cuts. You know, projections may be for one more next year and another in 2027, but as you pointed out, we've got a new fed share right around the corner, so you know, it's anyone's guess where that's gonna take us.

Manus Clancy: It's hard to picture a scenario, even though one might be necessary of rates going higher. I know there were some headlines this week where people saying, what if the next move is higher? What if inflation comes back? But I do think a new Fed chairman coming in will certainly be much more dovish, right? The people that have been rumored to be in play for the next fed chair person, all have been touting the need for lower rates. So even though that may not be the best policy move, maybe cutting rates at a time where stocks are near their all time highs is maybe not wise. We'll find out I suppose over time. It seems like a near certainty given the way the chips are falling for the Trump administration and how he will really control the the voter pool it seems, and certainly the chairman over the next couple months. So, I do expect more cuts in the future and I think that it was nice to see Powell basically talk the glass half full inflation under control labor, yes, still a problem. But that was one of those good news from bad news remarks, that even though the labor market is bumpy, it may lead to more rate cuts in the future. So generally speaking, a positive day for investors with that and, and I do know that you talked about the commercial real estate market, and I know you want to get into this a little bit. The market does seem very confident, maybe is the word or not terribly concerned, even though there are some storm clouds and headwinds possibly in the future in terms of the jobs market and a tapped out consumer. It seems like sentiment is modestly bullish. What do you think? 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, I would say that's true Manus, I think here we are with just a few more weeks remaining in the year. And the holidays are always a time, not just for reflection, but for forecasting and the forecast for commercial real estate are starting to come out.

I've seen analyses from Deloitte, Colliers, Addison Young, Cushman Wakefield just came out with theirs and I agree. I think what I'm reading in the forecast thus far, they're bullish, but with a long list of caveats. You know, a lot are talking about continued stabilization or coming off a couple years of high rates and uncertainty, but that 2026 may well shape up to be this year where a lot of the cross currents that the markets had to digest over the past year or so are finally beginning to sort themselves out.

Whether you're talking about pricing, whether you're talking about, debt capital availability, or just the availability of properties for sale, which were very, very, shallow over the past few years and now our property listings have been going up at a pretty good clip this year. So, you know, I think all in all, based on what I'm reading is 2026 shaping up maybe not as a boom year, but not as a bust either. More like a market say, that's kind of maturing into its next chapter with a lot of opportunity for investors, but a lot of differentiation. So that really calls for doing your homework, staying focused on fundamentals, making sure that your assumptions are as accurate as they can be. 

Manus Clancy: It's interesting. I'm gonna take this next one secondhand 'cause I wasn't at this conference, but a friend gave me his, gave Cliff notes from it. It was the NYU December real estate conference. I think it was held at the Pierre Hotel near Central Park in Manhattan. And so he and I were chitchatting about that and he said it was a lot of great sessions. NYU does a terrific job bringing in really heavy hitters to talk about the market. And one of the things he talked about didn't surprise me at all, but one was a little eye-opening for me. The thing that didn't surprise me at all was he said the panelists, to a person said, debt availability is everywhere.

The market is flush with people looking to make loans from CMBS to banks, to insurance companies, to private equity across the risk spectrum. Stabilized. Distressed, formerly distressed conversions, new construction, it's all there. That didn't surprise me. We've been talking about this for a long time, that the lending market is flush and confident.

What he did say, which surprised me a little, but maybe it shouldn't have, was finding the equity for deals. Finding the equity participation much more challenging. What he took away was that there's a lot of pension funds out there, allocators to real estate that allocated quite a bit in 22, 23, 24, getting their allocation to the percentage that they wanted to, but have not gotten the return of principle, which allows them to recycle cash. And so they've been saying, we're kind of constrained here. We'd love to participate in some of your new deals, but until we get some of this money back from some of these multifamily deals that we've invested in, in 22 and 23, we're kind of capped out. Our allocation is at its limit. And I thought that was interesting. I hadn't really thought of that, but it is kind of the pig in the python problem that you have in multifamily, that a lot of this stuff, things were bought at high prices. They were expected to value add very quickly and flip within two or three years, but they've been slow to go through the process and accordingly, equity has been slow to recycle. And maybe that's a limitation or a cap on growth in 2026. I think it'll be interesting to see, maybe it's a cap on growth, but maybe soon we get past this period and reallocation takes place. I don't know. What do you think, Dianne? 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, that is an interesting perspective and kind of positions 2026 as another transition year, but in a different way than 2025 was. And I think what you hit on is a sense of frustration by folks in commercial real estate, just at the slow pace, you know that things are moving and that it does take time for these things to work out and for assets to really kind of show their ROI, for assets to change hands, for folks to get realistic about what's on their books. So it's, you know, it's slow and I think in terms of forecasting, it makes it a little bit more difficult. But I wanna take a moment here, Manus, we talked about year end being about predictions, but it's also about reflections and I want to thank someone that we both know. That is Shlomo Chop, he was a guest on the CRE Weekly Digest last spring. I know you've known him for a long time Manus. And for those who don't know him, Shlomo is an expert on many things and his brain goes a hundred miles an hour. He's best known as a debt restructuring and structured finance specialist. He's the managing director of Case Equity Partners in New York City, and I had the pleasure this week and the privilege of attending his second annual partner appreciation dinner in New York, and it was really such a special event. And as Shlomo said in his toast that it was the time of year to remember what truly matters, the people that you're fortunate enough to work with, the relationships that make our work meaningful. And I will say on the lending market, Manus, the folks I talked to there had a very busy 2025 and are gearing up for a busier 2026. But you know, I'll say it was a very classy event. It was a very enjoyable night. So thank you Shlomo, for including me, and I am proudly wearing my new case vest today to keep me warm. 

Manus Clancy: He does run a great event. And I have to say for a country, sadly, where people are transactional, they do their deal, they move on, they forget about it, they move on to the next deal, right? And there isn't reflection and there isn't gratitude and there isn't a look back on and tokens of appreciation given to those that have gotten you here. Shlomo is the outlier in this, that he's always thanking those people that helped him reach the levels of success that he has. And it's rare, not just in commercial real estate, it's rare, generally speaking, and when you see it, it's really pleasant to see and good for him for doing this.

I have to ask you this though. You know when people walk into a party like that, they haven't had a cocktail yet, and they're kind of guarded, and then an hour into it, they've had their second martini and maybe a little bit more truth comes out. And as the truth comes out, would you say people were more bullish than you expected or less bullish? What was the general vibe of the party at 11:00 PM compared to what it was at 8:00 PM 

Dianne Crocker: Well, I'll say, my carriage showed up at 9:45 'cause I had a train to take home. But I will say, I mean, there was a definite positive vibe in that room. I didn't sense anything that was very bearish. Everybody was I think had a pedal to the metal kind of sense as the night went on and no one to my eye seemed to have one old fashioned too many. Shlomo did a really good job of kind of setting the stage for folks in the room to really interact with each other, you know, to be there to build new relationships because he was so grateful for the relationships that he's formed with everybody in the room. And it, it really was a great thing to see. 

Manus Clancy: So I know sometime over the next two weeks we're gonna do two podcasts. One will be our 2025 reflections on what happened and what surprised us and how the year played out. And then we'll do another one with our 2026 predictions. But while we're all on the topic, maybe a quick preview from you if there's anything that you're concerned about in 2026 that could pull the rug out from under CRE, what would it be? 

Dianne Crocker: I think it would be something that really spooked capital and sent it back to the sidelines. You know, I think that would really put the brakes on what's already kind of a slow, steady pace of recovery or if we started to see properties really go belly up. You know, we've talked for years about maturing loans and you know, the snowplow effect replacing the kind of kick the can mentality. So I think if we started to see a lot of loans really go south, that would also really, I think, startle the market and could potentially pivot us into negative territory. How about you? What's on your worry list? 

Manus Clancy: I would say the corporate loan credit problems. I would say, not that they necessarily interact specifically with CRE debt, but they correlate in the sense that if people are worried that the number of cockroaches we see using Jamie Diamond's term, in the leverage loan market in the CLO loan market, right? These non-credit rated entities, if we see a lot of defaults there that would push spreads wider. The gravitational pull would drag CRE risk premiums wider. And if people start to get this feeling that perhaps discipline wasn't as tight in the last couple years as they thought it was, that would do exactly what you said a few minutes ago. That would slow capital availability. That would send people racing to the sidelines. I think that's my, probably my biggest concern in 2026. We hope that that doesn't happen. I'm not expecting it to happen, but that would have a detrimental impact. 

Dianne Crocker: Agreed. And, you know, I think the labor market is also on my list, probably a close second. You know, and I think about what analysts like Ryan Severino and Rebecca Rockey said on this podcast, you know, that if the labor market weakens, it has ripple effects across pretty much every level of commercial real estate. So we've already been seeing signs of a weakening jobs market. Granted, the data is a bit spotty at the moment, but that's something else that I think is definitely worth watching and potentially detrimental if it weakens significantly. 

Manus Clancy: Agreed. 

Alyssa Lewis: Pivoting to our LightBox Data Dive. What do you have for us this week, Dianne? 

Dianne Crocker: Well, this week our LightBox transactions Tracker data came in and it shows that 887 commercial real estate deals closed in November, totaling $23.8 billion. So that's a pretty solid showing for a shorter month. I will say that we did see things cool a little bit at the top end of the market. There were 43 nine digit deals down from 52 in October and 58 in September. So big ticket trades are still happening, but just at a slightly slower pace. But I'd say, you know, overall deal flow held steady, the market felt active, not stalled, but I wanna step back, Manus and get your take on a new story from Moody's this week. On the same topic, they noted that November was the first negative year over year drop in transaction volume in almost two years. They didn't see it as a demand problem. They chalked it up to a stalemate between buyers and sellers.

The higher rates, sticky pricing, the broader policy uncertainty. But I think, you know, from our vantage point, the data we've been watching, not just for deals, but for appraisals, for due diligence, for property listings, that just doesn't show a market that's shutting down. It's been pretty steady on throughout much of the year. This was a modest cool down in November and completely in line with seasonal patterns, so I'm not really buying that we're at a turning point just yet. Manus, what do you think? 

Manus Clancy: I think you're absolutely right. I would call this a blip. We certainly saw a slowdown over the Thanksgiving week in the number of announced deals, but that just could be a function of people saying, I'll write my press release, or I'll announce my deal when I get back from the holidays, I'm running out of time here. So, we also had the government shutdown, which may have slowed things down, modestly, people getting approvals for things and so forth. So I'm not thinking that this is anything more than the seasonal blip, and I take solace from the fact that when you teed up our LightBox activity index last week and talked about some of the numbers, you mentioned that the dip we saw in November was less than the seasonal dip we normally see. So I'm chalking this up to a combination of government shutdown and the Thanksgiving week just putting some downward pressure here. We'll know soon enough, but it seems like when I'm reading my Commercial Observer, Real Deal, GlobeSt, Business Journals, every week it seems like these nine digit deals are happening every day. So, but we'll know soon enough and it'll be exciting number to see when we get to year end. 

Dianne Crocker: Okay. I feel better now. 

Alyssa Lewis: Dianne, what's our did you know for the week? 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, for this week's did you know Alyssa, I'll stay on the transactions track and note that the top three deals in November, they were all billion dollar portfolios and they were across senior living, mixed use, and student housing. So we're working on the full breakdown of November's deal data, so you can expect that out next week.

Manus Clancy: Those are three categories that we don't talk about a ton, and we don't see huge deals from all that often. When we talk about big deals each month, normally it's coming from the multifamily segment, the industrial portfolios that are getting sold, offices, even though they're at the press prices, a lot of nine figure deals still getting done. Nice to see a diversity in property type in November. It shows that people are reaching into new asset classes with big numbers, and I like that. 

Alyssa Lewis: Time for our LightBox deal dive. Let's start with development. What do you have for us Manus? 

Manus Clancy: I have several here, and I'm not gonna dwell on any one of them very long because there are several, but the theme I wanted to come up with with development in these next five minutes is consistent with what we talked about at the top of the podcast, which is capital availability. That it doesn't matter what part of the country you're in or what type of development you're trying to do, if the numbers add up, capital will be available for you. There's nobody pulling in the reigns right now on this. So in very short order, in Orange County, this story comes from Nick Trombola. Core Development got a $41 million loan to convert 2700 Main in Orange County from a vacant office and a parking lot to a 158 multifamily building. This is in Santa Ana, the lender there Israel Discount Bank. Julia Echikson from Commercial Observer in Florida. Kolter and Perko are buying out a Jupiter Island condo, paying $25 million to take this, basically raise it and turn it into a luxury condo. Certainly they expect to get construction financing for this. They wouldn't do it otherwise. So that's our story from South Florida.

In Newark, New Jersey. This is from Anthony Russo of GlobeSt. The developers there, SK Development and Berger, landed a $250 million package to develop luxury apartments. The debt package there arranged by Walker and Dunlop. Goldman Sachs Alternatives provided the financing.

And in Boston, we don't talk about life science anymore. It seems to be a property type that's a little bit out of fashion right now. It was the rage five years ago when people were spending hundreds of millions, if not billions, on lab space to develop the next big vaccine or the next big weight loss drug. It hasn't been the same on fire market as it's been a couple years ago, but here we have Kiowa Capital providing a $79 million construction loan for a Boston Life Science project. The developer will create the bolt, which will be a 180,000 square foot life science project in Woburn, Massachusetts. So just underscoring just how easy it is right now to the good for developers to get cash for new projects everywhere. 

Dianne Crocker: Nice combination of projects that you highlighted there Manus. You know, I think anytime there's a debt office asset like the one in Orange County that's turned into badly needed housing, it's gonna get attention and Orange County has one of the most expensive rental markets in California. I read the average rent was nearly $3,000, and that there's barely any new multifamily being built. So I think that conversion checks a lot of boxes.

I do have to step in Manus for our friends in the Boston area, that it's pronounced Woo-Burn. So we don't want anyone to bristle, especially our friend at Eastern Bank who actually probably says Woo-Bun. We used to have an office there so that's like top of mind for me. And to your point, you know, it was the life sciences market in Boston was so hot just a few years ago, and we've talked about this on the pod before, you know that it's really cooled down and there's not as much equity coming in to invest in it. And I think, you know, this project is definitely a sign that developers are seeing that Woburn area as kind of the sweet spot. You know, it's more affordable, it's only 10 miles west of Boston and capital will lean into that. And that project, the Bolt, is part of a bigger strategy that combines labs with housing and retail and it's a great location right off a major highway. So I think that one's a win. 

Manus Clancy: It wouldn't be a Manus podcast without me butchering at least two or three names. So it is par for the course, as you Dianne know, and some of my former hosts, Joe McBride and Martha Coacher know over the years, I don't always do well with the English language as our audience will know.

But I wanted to close this particular segment on confident market and redevelopment with one last thought. I was looking through our land sales from last week and I zeroed in on, it looks like about eight or nine, that top my list of transactions. And what I have is, and you can listen to this, Brooklyn Park in Brooklyn, Plain City, Ohio, Second Avenue in Manhattan, San Ramon, California, Bellevue, Washington, Boston, Mass, Englewood, Colorado. All of these are land parcels that were acquired last week with future multifamily in mind. And it goes to show that even though multifamily has taken its lumps over the last couple years, developers are full speed ahead in acquiring land and getting ready to put buildings up and shovels in the ground.

Dianne Crocker: And to your point, if the numbers work, if it's in the right market and you know the project makes sense, the lending will come. 

Alyssa Lewis: Manus, let's transition to industrial. What's making headlines? 

Manus Clancy: I have a couple stories here as well. I've been trying to bucket my stories a little bit more theme wise this week to kind of draw some threads between different stories. And I have two here. One again from Nick Trombola, a second mention today. Heinz selling Raceway Industrial, a 230,000 square foot logistics facility in Carlsbad. Selling it for 73 million to New Pacific Realty. This thing was constructed in 2024.

A second one, Brookfield selling an Inland Empire warehouse for over 120 million. This is a 525K square foot property in San Bernardino. The buyer there, Overton Moore Properties. Brookfield acquired this asset for 84 million in 2020.

What connected these properties for me together is, unlike the previous 10 years where some of these big institutional buyers could not get enough of industrial, they seem much more discriminating now. Much more we're gonna lay our chips here, we're gonna take some chips off the table here. It's not all sales are open, full speed ahead, buy everything. It's now, just like they talk about in the equity markets, a stock pickers market. I think this is a location pickers market right now, and Heinz selling, Brookfield selling, these are two smart entities. They do their homework and for them to be selling tells me that in the industrial space, it's time to really make sure you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's. 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, that's certainly true. And what jumped out at me about the Carlsbad deal was that the property's fully leased long-term to UPS. So I read that, and this time of year, I'm highly dependent on UPS, getting my things from point A to point B. So that for a buyer means that property's got income stability for years. But San Diego, you know, Carlsbad is in Northern San Diego, hasn't really been a headline market for industrial. Certainly not like LA, but this is one of the second largest industrial sales in San Diego this year. So I agree. You know, a lot of chips are moving around as investors wanna make sure that they're in the strongest markets.

So Manus, I have San Diego on the brain because I'm speaking at the Environmental Bankers Association's Winter Conference in San Diego in early February. So a story this week in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Grant about San Diego office caught my eye. And the headline was, loss of a big tenant leaves a hole in San Diego office. And the story was about the 93-year-old chairman of Irvine Company, Donald Bran. He spent the last two years unwinding his entire downtown San Diego office portfolio, and this fall he sold the last of his towers at very steep discounts, sometimes more than 50% below his purchase price. And the problem is that San Diego relied very heavily on Irvine's presence in the market. So this full exit is kind of being read as a vote of no confidence in the downtown. Their vacancy rate has climbed to 35.6%. So that's more than double submarkets nearby like La Jolla and UTC. You know, and meanwhile, Manus, we talk about markets like New York and even San Francisco where office property trades are breaking records again. So what I see is San Diego could be positioning itself for the type of headlines that we talk about, but where opportunistic investors come in and buy properties with high vacancies, with visions of repositioning them.

Manus Clancy: The term going around these days, it's used often right now. We hear new terms come up for the economy all the time. And right now on the broader US economy, people are talking about the K shaped economy and they're talking about how the rich keep getting richer. That's the higher part of the k and those in the middle class and below being the lower end of the K and that the economy is going in two different directions. You can apply that same construct to the office market as well. To your point, Dianne, we do see some of this creative office, which people seem to be flocking towards or newly constructed class A in major cities on the upper half of that K, but those Bs and Cs, even the dated kind of A minuses remain on the lower half of that K.

And to that point, we have a story in New York, Rich Bockmann of the Real Deal. David Werner buying the One Dag Hammers Gold office building near the UN in Manhattan for $270 million. This is a 50 story building. It's known as housing a lot of headquarters for foreign embassies and so forth. This property went for over 500 million just six years ago, 566 million. And this is the lower half of the K, right? Just like Donald Rent has been dealing with it in San Diego that this building built in 1972, almost 900,000 square feet, selling at more than 50% off on First Avenue in New York. So a tale of two markets in the office space, and I think it remains as such for at least the next couple years. 

Dianne Crocker: Yeah, I think so. And I will say Manus, I couldn't wait until we got to that story because I couldn't wait to hear your German pronunciation of that word with the um lau. But yeah, he got it, you know, basically for half of what Rock Point paid for it six years ago. It's right near the UN headquarters. So it's sits among other class A buildings. It's not like that location is broken, and this particular property has some pretty recognizable tenants, so it's certainly not a dead building. My take was it's just an office building that's priced for 2025, not 2019. 

Manus Clancy: It just doesn't fit the profile of where people wanna be. It's just a few blocks too far away from Grand Central. It's a 10 to 15 minute walk, not a five minute walk. And those types of buildings just are not in vogue right now. You wanna make this in vogue, you have to pour money into it, you have to add amenities, and I'm not sure that foreign dignitaries, while they probably like to live a upscale life, I'm not sure that the budgets for these countries wanna pay for highly amenitized buildings. So we'll see how this plays out but just another example of a deeply discounted off the market, off the main drag, New York City office sale. 

Alyssa Lewis: Time for our slice of life. Dianne, I know you have a fun one for us this week. 

Dianne Crocker: So this is interesting, it takes me back to the Friends series in the 1990s, and that was that Jeff Sutton flipped the friends building for $33 million. It's a famous West Village property, sold for a 79% profit after changing hands just last year. So, Rachel, Monica, Joey, Chandler. They have a new landlord. It just takes me back, Manus. I don't know how Monica afforded that apartment. And I wonder what kind of rent premium that landlord gets from advertising the opportunity to live in a friend's apartment.

Manus Clancy: Well, I say the average apartment in New York goes for something like $4,500 a month. We all know that one with the high ceilings and multiple bedrooms and enormous amount of open space. I can only imagine that has to be somewhere between 10 and $20,000 a month, I would guess. But I have to ask, in this slice of life, for you, Alyssa, and you Dianne, what characters and Friends do you most associate yourself with?

Alyssa Lewis: I think I would land with Monica. I believe my family and friends would agree with that. My type A personality. 

Manus Clancy: Yeah, a little bit type A, a little bit OCDish. 

Alyssa Lewis: Just a, just a smidge. 

Manus Clancy: How about you Dianne? 

Dianne Crocker: That's not a bad thing. Alyssa. I think I'd lean more toward Rachel. You know, remember she started as a waitress in a coffee shop and she worked her way up to this high-end job in fashion, so she was ambitious. I respect her for that. And I will say Manus, if the new owner, they could go full on, they could open a Central Perk coffee shop on the ground floor. There could be a hair salon that offers the Rachel haircut, which was very popular in the nineties. 

Manus Clancy: There you go. I would say for me it would be Gunter. There's that German pronunciation you were looking for before. I'm just a guy circling the perimeter, listening in, taking all things in, making sure people have enough coffee, and otherwise walking through life with that dry sense of humor and livering on the periphery. 

Alyssa Lewis: And with that, we'll close thank you to our producers at Bruyning Media. Please join the LightBox team every week as they share 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. As always, thank you for listening and have a great week. 

Manus Clancy: Let's go.