Israel-based Brown Hotels Collection is among numerous operators dealing with the heavy human toll being exacted by the war between Israel and Hamas by keeping its properties open to shelter employees and others affected by the fighting in Gaza.

“Our team members need help,” said Leon Avigad, founder and CEO of the family-owned company. “We have single working mothers and fathers drafted into the army. Our Arabic employees are feeling very uncomfortable. We’re looking at each person’s situation case by case, trying to be as humane as possible.” 

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Flexible-space provider WeWork, reportedly on the verge of filing for bankruptcy protection, briefly moved its own cowork tenants to alternate locations before finalizing an 11^th-hour lease agreement to stay with landlord Helical at The Bower office property in London. 

New York-based WeWork has been renegotiating leases globally amid efforts to trim space and reduce its financial obligations, and it recently missed interest payments due to bondholders. WeWork confirmed to CoStar News that its operations at The Bower shut briefly on Oct. 27 as it temporarily relocated its members to nearby venues before hammering out terms with Helical. 

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Despite a turbulent market environment, Canada-based Ivanhoe Cambridge has no hesitation in adapting its $80 billion property portfolio to the structural trends that are transforming the real estate industry in Europe and elsewhere. 

Among other recent moves, the investment firm sold a portfolio of five warehouses in France, totaling 162,000 square meters, to investor KKR. Karim Habra, a top executive in Ivanhoe Cambridge’s Europe and Asia-Pacific operations, gave Business Immo his assessment of the market and detailed the convictions guiding his investment strategy. 

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Struggling Austrian developer Signa Holding’s most prominent project in Germany is stalling after encountering financing obstacles. 

The company stopped work on The Elbtower in Hamburg, a planned €950 million office and hotel building that was to be 245 meters tall, which would make it the second-highest commercial property in Germany. The shell of the building has reached 100 meters high, but the construction contractor stopped work because Signa has not paid its invoices. Construction has also been halted on two other Signa projects in Hamburg, in one case because banks won’t lend due to missing office tenants. 

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The president of Dream Unlimited, one of Canada’s largest real estate companies, said part of the solution to Canada’s housing shortage could involve replacing some office buildings with residential property.

Michael Cooper told CoStar News the new federal rules lowering taxation on constructed apartment buildings could be a “game changer” for the industry. His company overseeing $24 billion in assets under management is pushing ahead with plans for 5,000 rental apartment units in Ottawa, Saskatoon, Calgary and Toronto, and office locations are being considered. “If you have a small office building on a big piece of land, you can replace the small office and put up an apartment,” Cooper said. 

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Nashville, Tennessee, fended off challenges from Phoenix and Las Vegas to rank highest in the United States in terms of appeal to real estate investors in a new report that also showed investment desirability fell in several Florida markets.

The Music City is also the first market to be No. 1 for three straight years in the annual “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” study that consulting firm PwC produces for nonprofit real estate research and policy organization Urban Land Institute. Cities such as Nashville and Austin, Texas, “are still some of the fastest-growing and strongest economies in the nation, and little on the horizon seems likely to change that,” according to the 2024 report based on surveys of about 1,800 real estate professionals.

CoStar News>> 

This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.