💧 The Data Drop: REITs’ shopping spree

TRD Data is The Real Deal’s real estate intelligence platform for tracking deals, development, permits and market trends in one place.

Welcome to The Data Drop by TRD Data, a weekly look at the numbers shaping real estate.

REITs have been on a tear, buying a lot more property this year than last. In the second quarter, equity REITs’ net acquisitions totaled $15.5 billion, more than triple last year’s figure, according to a TRD Data analysis of data from Nareit, an industry organization.

These firms, meanwhile, haven’t been selling as much as they have been purchasing. Total dispositions clocked in at $8.9 billion, down from $10.3 billion the year before.

Among REITs’ most popular buys this year? Data centers, of course, and healthcare properties, thanks to strong demographic tailwinds.

The buying activity stems from REITs’ solid operational performance of late, according to an industry expert, allowing them to more selectively prune their portfolios and access debt on better terms.

🏚️ America has a housing shortage. These cities have homes sitting empty

The U.S. is in dire need of more housing, but some metros have a sizable portion of empty properties.

Across the country, the home vacancy rate was 1.3 percent in the third quarter, about the same as last year, according to data from research firm Attom.

But metros like St. Louis, Birmingham and Detroit have some of the highest share of vacant homes in the country, ranging from 2.7 percent to 3.2 percent. Meanwhile, other metros, like AI-wealthy San Jose, California, struggle with inventory and have near-zero rates of vacancies.

Why the divergence? America is a big country and real estate, as always, is hyperlocal. A range of compounding factors, stemming from as broad as historical racial inequities to current oversupply issues can affect vacancy rates. Plus, rising mortgage rates and housing costs can also contribute to increased foreclosure rates, and, potentially, abandoned properties.

🌟 Los Angeles’ top residential brokers and brokerages rankings are in

It’s been a tough year for Los Angeles’ home sale market.

The top 25 brokers in the country closed 1,433 deals over the past year, down from 1,814 the year before. The total value of these deals came in at $7.8 billion, a decline from $9.7 billion the prior year, according to an analysis of county records by The Real Deal.

In contrast, the county’s top 20 brokerages fared much better, raking in $52.2 billion across 20,089 sales over the past year, both higher than the year before.

What’s affecting the market these days? To start, buyers and sellers can’t seem to agree on pricing, especially if either party doesn’t have a reason to budge. Also not helping are AI chatbots, which just end up stalling deals.

 💸 Top New Listing: $105M, Palm Beach, Florida

Priciest home sale listing in the U.S. over the past seven days on Zillow, excluding vacant lots

The “Ham and Cheese House,” also called Casa Eleda, at 920 South Ocean Boulevard hit the market for $105 million with Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate. It measures 13,200 square feet and has seven bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms, four half bathrooms and a private tunnel running directly to the home’s 150 feet of ocean frontage.

🧠 Stat of the Week: $2.2B

That’s how much U.S. builders spent on construction, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, in July, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s 3.8 percent down from the same time last year.

🗣️ ICYMI

TRD’s September issue is out! This month, read an analysis on how A&E’s Douglas Eisenberg became New York City’s landlord villain, a profile on what seems to be the sole, out transgender broker team in the world in Texas, a deep-dive into Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s real estate plays and much more.

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