In March, 42,368 bankruptcy petitions were filed nationwide, up 33% from 31,898 in February and up 17% from a year ago. Commercial filings jumped 24% to 2,305 in March compared with a year ago, and 548 of those were Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, up 79% from a year ago.
Insurers Pull Back
15% of insurers with commercial real-estate lending businesses are planning to shrink their activity this year. That's more than three times as many in the same survey last year.
New Construction
After three consecutive month-over-month increases, the overall number of U.S. rooms in construction fell slightly in March. Among the chain scale segments, luxury shows the highest number of rooms as a percentage of existing supply at 5.2%.
NY to FL
Florida gained more residents than any other state in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data with most of the domestic driver-license changes coming from New York.
Little Nell NYC
Rockefeller Center is preparing to open its first hotel, the latest sign that Midtown Manhattan’s largest office landlords are leaning into hospitality and entertainment as remote work reduces demand for office space. Aspen Hospitality plans to convert 10 floors of vacant office space above the NBC “Today” show studios into a luxury hotel. Rockefeller Center was a natural choice for Aspen Hospitality, because its owner, the Chicago-based Crown family, co-owns the complex with New York-based real-estate developer Tishman Speyer.
Minneapolis CRE
Nearly 23% of the commercial real estate loans in CRED iQ’s database that are secured by properties within the Minneapolis MSA are delinquent or in special servicing. That positions the market as the worst performing among the nearly 400 MSAs the company tracks nationwide, which encompasses more then $900 billion in outstanding commercial real estate debt.
GOPPAR
U.S. hotel gross operating profit per available room exceeded the pre-pandemic comparable and was the highest since October, according to STR’s February 2023 profit and loss data release for February. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was the only key bottom-line metric on a per-available-room basis to come in lower than February 2019.
Inflation
U.S. inflation eased to 5% in March from a year earlier, its lowest level in nearly two years, but underlying price pressures remained elevated despite the Federal Reserve’s campaign to slow rapid price increases.
Apartment Mortgages
A record $151.8 billion in U.S. mortgages backed by rental apartment buildings are set to expire this year, and $940.1 billion are set to expire over the next five years.
PE Food
Private equity funds snapped up a record 786 makers of food and beverages worth $32 billion in 2021, using bundles of debt to pay for their purchases. The financiers projected that staple goods would keep making profits no matter how the economy fared. But that forecast changed, as processed-food prices shot 14% higher last year, almost four times the 20-year annual average, while fruits leapt 18% and vegetables soared 51%.