Airbnb Founders Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and Brian Chesky (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: Airbnb announced Thursday that it brought in more than $1 billion during its latest round of fundraising, valuing the nine-year-old hospitality startup at at $31 billion.

The San Francisco-based company previously said it raised about $555 million as part of the same funding round in September, but a source close to the company told Reuters that Airbnb has raised an additional $447.85 million, pushing the total over $1 billion. Previously, it raised $100 million in a funding round in the fall of 2015.

During the second half of 2016, Airbnb turned a profit for the first time, according to Bloomberg. In November, Bloomberg also reported the company was in advanced talks to buy its biggest Chinese rival, Xiaozhu.com. Meanwhile, the company is considering breaking into the long-term rental market.

Airbnb has been hampered in Miami Beach by legislation designed to curb short-term rentals except in certain designated areas. In January, the short-term rental platform signed a deal with the town of Surfside to begin collecting and remitting taxes on March 1, marking the first municipality in South Florida to do so. 

The scourge of commercial property owners across New York City, Airbnb is the subject of a lawsuit brought by Parker Madison Partners, who allege that Airbnb is actually an illegal brokerage and should be registered with the state of New York in order to continue doing business. Airbnb has not commented on the litigation. [Reuters]  — Will Parker

From left: Yale Fox, Richard Sarkis, Michael Mandel, Caren Maio and Hiten Samtani

From the New York website: There may never be a truly easy time to launch a startup, but in the real estate tech business the past few years weren’t too bad. As the real estate industry’s profits surged amid a years-long market boom, executives were more willing to spend on products like virtual space tours or property databases. But now that the market is no longer on the upswing, are leaner times ahead for tech startups?

Richard Sarkis, founder and CEO of commercial property data company Reonomy, said he’s noticed a “paradigm shift” in the way real estate firms buy technology products. As the market slows, technologies that cut costs suddenly hold the greatest appeal. “Increasingly, the conversations are shifting towards ‘convince me that our companies are not only going to drive out top-line growth but are going to help me be more fiscally responsible’,” he said.

Sarkis was speaking on a panel Thursday at a launch event in New York for TRData, The Real Deal’s new real estate research platform. All the panelists make a living selling data tools to real estate firms, and in a discussion moderated by TRD‘s Hiten Samtani, they grappled with the difficulties of doing so in an industry that is reluctant to embrace change.

Michael Mandel, founder of crowdsourced leasing comp database CompStak, was more pessimistic than Sarkis. He argued that an industry increasingly keen on cutting costs may decide that data is not always necessary. “I do think a lot of times people do fall back on their instincts” when making decisions, he said.

David Eisenberg, who founded the virtual-floor-plan company Floored and became a CBRE executive when it acquired his startup, said his challenge as a salesperson was to convince landlords who made a lot of money without ever changing their ways to change their ways. “It is more difficult than my previous life [in e–commerce] where we sold software to retailers where the house was on fire and they said ‘Amazon is destroying me and I will pay anything to get your help’,” he said.

“Ideally, the holy grail is that I can say, ‘listen you put a dollar in and five dollars come out,'” said Caren Maio, CEO of Nestio, a leasing management and marketing platform for residential landlords and brokers.

From left: David Eisenberg, Yale Fox and Richard Sarkis

Both Eisenberg and Sarkis said the increasing prevalence of online data makes offering numbers less valuable. Successful data companies of the future, they argued, need to offer novel tools to analyze data rather than just the data itself. Yale Fox, CEO of Rentlogic, said his company was moving toward putting together building data in such a way that it could help investors make better acquisitions.

Fox recently faced a dilemma completely unrelated to market cycles. Rentlogic grades landlords in part on how well maintained their buildings are. Last year, the startup partnered with brokerage Citi Habitats to grade its listings, but was forced to end the partnership after landlords with bad grades came down hard on the brokerage.

“The Real Deal published an article with the headline ‘Citi Habitats partners with anti-slumlord website’ so [Citi Habitats’] Gary [Malin] was getting emails day and night (…) and the relationship ended within a few days,” Fox recalled. But the episode still generated publicity, and Fox said that in the same week a dozen landlords reached out to ask about listing their properties directly on Rentlogic.

Rentlogic isn’t the only company that has felt the collective heat of the real estate industry. Listing site and Zillow-subsidiary Streeteasy recently launched a new feature that allows brokers to pay for putting their name on the platform as a listing agent, and was met with concerted opposition from real estate brokerages. Nestio’s Maio, who operates in the same universe and is partnering with the Real Estate Board of New York on its residential listings system (RLS), said “Zillow is a media company, and they make their money from advertising. So while it’s upsetting, it’s not surprising.”

The panelists also discussed how they expected the real estate industry to evolve in the coming years. Eisenberg said that self-driving cars would change the way that buildings were configured. Maio said that on the residential side, the evolution was rapid.

“I’m not even thinking about 2020,” she said. “I’m thinking about two months from now because the industry is going to look a lot different.”

Murano at Portofino unit 2601. Inset: listing agent Stacy Robins and buyer’s agent Luciana Barreto

The founder and CEO of Brazilian jewelry company Vivara Jewelry paid $6 million for a condo in the South-of-Fifth neighborhood of Miami Beach. 

Nalipa LLC bought unit 2601 at Murano at Portofino, listing agent Stacy Robins of Stacy Robins Companies told The Real Deal. Records show the company is managed by Nelson Kaufman, who owns Vivara Jewelry, one of Brazil’s largest jewelry companies, and Etna Furniture. Luciana Barreto of Cervera Real Estate represented the buyer, whom she declined to identify.

The 3,365-square-foot unit was last on the market for $6.49 million, or nearly $1,930 per square foot. It closed on Wednesday, Robins said, for $1,783 a foot. “This is a non-oceanfront unit and it sold for $1,700-plus a foot,” she said, adding that the high price is “a testament to this particular unit and this particular line.”

It also has not been renovated and the buyer plans to gut and renovate the unit, Barreto said. “He just wanted a bigger unit because he’s going to spend more time here,” she added. They looked at condos in Sunny Isles and other areas of Miami, but Kaufman wanted to stay in the SoFi neighborhood, where he already owns a unit at the Continuum. That unit is not the market.

In the Murano building, one other condo sold for a higher price, Robins said. Unit 3501 sold in 2015 for $6.75 million. Murano at Portofino, at 1000 South Pointe Drive, was built in 2001. La Piaggia restaurant, which leased space in the building, closed at the end of last year.

The deal marks the second high-profile sale of a condo to a Brazilian buyer in recent weeks. Barreto represented the buyer of Theory CEO Andrew Rosen’s Setai penthouse, Brasif CEO Jonas Barcellos Corrêa Filho. Barcellos paid $8.5 million for that unit.

“Even in a soft market there are still deals to be made,” Robins said.

Flooding in Fort Lauderdale (Credit: Getty Images) Inset: Caroline Lewis, David Martin, Jimmy Morales and Tiffany Troxler

As the oceans continue to rise, Miami-Dade County communities will need to collaborate more with developers in order to form sustainable communities.

This was the message from David Martin, president of Terra Group, a Miami-based real estate development firm, during a panel discussion on climate change held at the Philanthropy Miami 2017 conference at Jungle Island Thursday morning. Other panelists at the climate change conference, moderated by CLEO executive director Caroline Lewis, were Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales and Tiffany Troxler, director of Florida International University’s Sea Level Solutions Center.

According to NOAA, the oceans may be up to seven feet higher than current levels within 80 years. That would not only inundate sections of the county, but also compromise underwater fresh water supplies.

But we don’t have to wait 80 years to see the effects. Morales and Troxler showed photographs of “sunny day flooding” events that hit low areas like Miami Beach’s Sunset Harbour area, Morningside Park in Miami, western Miami-Dade County, and western Broward.

Those news reports are now often coupled with projections of sea-level rise, a trend that threatens the sustainability of South Florida itself, Martin argued.

“The moment that people stop believing in our community and stop wanting to move here, to retire here, to move their families here. The moment that corporations and companies decide that Miami-Dade County is not the place for them long term, is the moment we will have a traumatic impact on the economy,” he said.

To fight it, Martin said the fact that local governments and business organizations are already looking at ways to combat sea-level rise must be publicized more.

Martin also pushed for a stronger bond between developers and local governments to plan Florida’s future with “smart” development.

Among Martin’s ideas was creating incentives for developers to make their future projects energy self-reliant. “The idea is that developers through solar panels or waste recycling, can create electricity,” he said. Those kilowatts can then be sold to local governments or neighboring establishments to power utilities or even water pumps. That would end the exclusive role that Florida Power and Light currently holds in providing electricity for communities. Instead, Martin’s vision calls for the creation of “green” miniature power plants housed in state-of-the-art projects providing power to various neighborhoods and cities. “There is a lot of regulations to look at,” Martin admitted to The Real Deal after the speech.

Another concept Martin proposed was maximizing future development rights at areas that are at higher ground while allowing lower-lying areas to become lakes or marshes. Those future high-density areas, Martin added, should be economically mixed zones where low-income housing is combined with luxury addresses. In order to retain lower income households, Martin suggested, tax abatements can be given to residents who have lived in the area for more than 10 years.

“We have a huge responsibility in Miami-Dade County to set an example for the world,” Martin argued. The best way to do that is to figure out “how to incentivize smart development in the right areas… but that is my two cents,” he said.

The best way to do that, Martin said, is to end antagonistic relationships between local residents and developers and work with them to create new zoning codes that look at future flooding events even 500 years from now. “We can create a smart plan for development now and where [future] development should be and how to incentivize developer to build there,” he said.

Morales said the city of Miami Beach has updated its development codes, requiring future buildings to have higher flood elevations and increasing the height of sea walls.

He said Miami Beach has also invested $500 million raising sidewalks and roads and replacing its old storm water gravity system for infrastructure that includes more than 60 pumps that are capable of pumping 35,000 gallons of water a minute. “We are fortunate in that we have a strong tax base…,” Morales said. “But a lot of cities can’t afford that kind of infrastructure.”

Troxler said the Sea Level Solutions Center has been working with organizations and cities to create long-term plans to mitigate future sea-level rise events. This includes developing a plan that would allow Virginia Key to exist in some form for the next 100 years. Troxler is also examining the effects of sea-level rise on the Everglades, a place where sea water intrusion is already killing off vegetation. “As plants start to die,” she cautioned, “it opens larger pools of water.”

It isn’t just sea-level rise that South Florida must worry about. Climate change is also predicted to increase rain intensity by 5 percent or 10 percent, Troxler said. Oh, and it will get hotter, making life less bearable for people without air-conditioners.

The mosquitoes, though, will love it and that may mean that disease outbreaks like Zika will persist.

“During a meeting with the head of the CDC [Center for Disease Control] we talked about the impact it will have on mosquitoes,” Morales remembered. “As the climate gets warmer, more areas become subject to tropical-type conditions.” Warmer conditions also means that the gestation period for eggs to hatch, become larvae and becomes mosquitoes shortens, Morales learned, and “as it gets hotter… mosquitoes bite more.”

A screen shot of Airbnb listings in Miami and Mayor Tomas Regalado

Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado’s stand-off with Airbnb got a two-week extension.

The Miami City Commission on Thursday deferred a vote on a Regalado-sponsored resolution requiring the city to “vigorously” enforce its zoning laws. The vote was postponed until March 23 because Miami Commissioner Ken Russell is out of the country.

Since February, Regalado has floated proposals to clamp down on property owners who use the popular web-based short-term rental service to illegally rent out homes to tourists. Despite the deferral, the mayor didn’t back down from his criticisms of Airbnb because he believes daily rentals create a nuisance in the city’s residential neighborhoods.

“The pricey lobbyists from Airbnb will tell us that we can make a deal,” Regalado said. “There’s nothing to negotiate.”

Under the city’s current zoning code, daily and weekly rentals of residential properties are illegal. However, busting Airbnb users is not so easy. Code enforcers can only cite property owners if they receive a complaint to investigate illegal rentals. In addition, officers must witness the violation for a code enforcement violation to move forward.

This is the second setback for the mayor. In late February, Regalado pulled a proposed ordinance reinforcing Miami’s ban on short-term rentals from the agenda of the Miami Planning and Zoning Appeals Board. Now, he argues the best way to tackle the issue is by going after Airbnb hosts in a way similar to the city of Miami Beach, which enacted legislation imposing $20,000 fines against homeowners who rent their properties through Airbnb.  

Yet some Miami homeowners believe Regalado’s complaints are a ruse meant to protect Miami-Dade’s multi-billion dollar hotel industry. “As a Miami native, I am saddened and deeply upset by your continued attempts to restrict property owners’ rights for short-term rental,” said Nicholas Ramirez. “Now if you tell me that you want to restrict short-term rentals because of the hotel industry, I would feel less insulted by the explanation. However, this begs the question of who really is pressing the issue of regulation behind the scenes.”

According to data on short-term rentals in Miami neighborhoods provided to The Real Deal by Airbnb, there are 2,336 active hosts who earn about an average of $6,600 a year.

Janet Yellen (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: U.S. mortgage rates rose to the highest level in 2017 ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting that will decide the direction of short-term interest rates.

According to Freddie Mac, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages now ask 4.21 percent per year on average, up from 4.1 percent a week ago. The rate for 15-year loans rose to 3.42 percent, up from 3.32 percent, Bloomberg reported.

The Federal Reserve’s decision-making body will meet on March 14 and 15, and Fed chair Janet Yellen has hinted it may decide to raise its benchmark short-term interest rate, the federal funds rate. Higher short-term rates tend to push up mortgage rates.

“The economy has essentially met the employment portion of our mandate and inflation is moving closer to our 2% objective,” Yellen said in a speech earlier this month.  [Bloomberg] — Konrad Putzier 

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Ocean Drive in Miami Beach and Mayor Philip Levine (Ocean Drive photo by Michele Eve Sandberg/Corbis via Getty Images)

Calling sea level rise an “existential threat,” Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine on Thursday called on federal and state authorities to do more to help coastal cities like Miami Beach deal with rising tides that he says are threatening cities like his.  

Levine spoke Thursday at a conference of five government agencies that make up the Community Resilience Panel at a meeting at The University of Miami that was sponsored by the Miami law firm Hinshaw and Culbertson LLP.

Noting that Miami Beach has raised about $500 million to install pumps to raise city roads and undertake beach replenishment measures, Levine said nearly all the money had been raised by the city itself with no help from the federal government. In a reference to campaign ads he ran that showed him paddling his dog Earl through flooded streets on Miami Beach, Levine said “he got floated into office,” and he said Miami Beach voters got the message, agreeing to raise their storm water fees by 50 percent to 70 percent. That allowed city officials to get bond money to install pumps and begin raising streets. All city streets will eventually be raised to a minimum of 3.5 feet and the city is raising sea walls to a height of 5.7 feet.

Levine, who is not running for re-election this year, said the city has changed its building codes and is replenishing its beaches, but he said his city and other coastal cities “need funding and leadership,” from state and federal authorities.  “This is about the survival of coastal cities,” said Levine who also noted that “the system is broken…red tape makes it hard to get money.”  

Hal Wanless, who chairs the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami told The Real Deal that he believes within the next 50 years many barrier islands around the world are going to be abandoned, because of what he says will likely be a 2-foot rise in sea levels that will put cities like Miami Beach at extreme risk of storm surges and damage.

He said there’s already been a 1-foot rise in sea levels since 1930 and some residents on Miami Beach are not going to wait for levels to go higher. “Its unfortunately simple, people are already leaving Miami Beach, people are already starting to sell in the low-lying areas because of increasing flooding,” said Wanless who adds that many developers on Miami Beach and other low-lying coastal areas in the region are “not incorporating any understanding of sea level rise into where they are putting their pumps and electrical outlets — they are going to run into trouble real quick,” he said.  

Insurers speaking at the conference also sounded warnings about many residents of coastal South Florida being either uninsured or underinsured. Noting that South Florida already loses $20 billion to $22 billion on an annualized basis to hurricane losses,  Alex Kaplan, senior vice president, of SwissRe said those losses could go as high $46 billion by 2030. He told TRD that while a city like Miami Beach is taking a proactive approach to the risks associated with sea level rise, FEMA flood maps ultimately decide insurance pricing. And developers need to look to the future when they design their projects, he said. 

“If I were a long-term investor I would make sure that I have the appropriate plans and resources and financial structures in place to make sure that I could absorb those losses,” Kaplan said, “and make sure that whatever I’m developing is built for a future year and not today.”

Rendering of the Gateway at Wynwood (Credit: Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design)

New York-based R&B Realty has submitted new plans for a mixed-use office project in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. 

An affiliate of R&B, led by Aron Rosenberg, will go before the Miami Urban Development Review Board on Wednesday with its plans for the Gateway at Wynwood, a 12-story building proposed for 2916 North Miami Avenue.

The Gateway would have 464,700 square feet of space, which would include 184,800 square feet of office space, 33,750 square feet of retail space and 574 parking spaces, according to documents filed with the city of Miami on Thursday.

The developer is looking to increase lot coverage from the 80 percent that’s currently allowed to 86 percent, and is seeking a 10 percent reduction in required parking, among other waivers. Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design is the architect.

R&B affiliate 2994 NMA Gateway Properties, R&B bought the 1.12 acre site for $18 million in two separate transactions in 2016.

In October, a Miami planning and zoning board approved converting the property from multifamily to general commercial zoning, but denied the developer’s request for a change in height. At the time, R&B’s attorney told the board that the zoning changes would allow the entire property to conform with the Wynwood Neighborhood Revitalization District zoning overlay, which was adopted last year to make commercial and residential high-density development easier in the trendy arts district. The R&B lots, located at 2916 North Miami Avenue and 2994 North Miami Avenue, fall both inside and outside the overlay’s boundaries.

The Gateway at Wynwood isn’t the only new office building proposed for Wynwood, but it may be the largest. In December, RedSky Capital unveiled Cube Wynwyd, an eight-story office building at 222 Northwest 24th Street. The project, designed by Arquitectonica, will have 80,000 square feet of office space and about 11,400 square feet of retail space, and is set to open in 2018.

Akerman attorney Nicholas Barshel, who submitted the Gateway plans on behalf R&B, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Lauren Muss, John Gomes and Fredrik Eklund (Credit: BFA.com)

From the New York website: It’s typically said that switching firms coincides with a dip in business. Not so for Lauren Muss.

Muss, a 14-year veteran of the Corcoran Group agent who jumped to Douglas Elliman in the fall of 2014, topped the leaderboard at this year’s Elliman awards with more commissions than any other single agent at the firm in 2016.

Chad Carroll and Maria Mendelsohn

Muss beat out competitors Kirk Rundhaug and Joan Swift to take home top honors at the Ellies, the Elliman annual awards which were hosted at Radio City Music Hall Thursday night. Rundhaug and Swift came in second and third place in the individual agent category, respectively.

The Eklund/Gomes Team, led by “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Fredrik Eklund and his partner John Gomes, took the top spot for the fourth consecutive year. The Holly Parker team and the the Raphael De Niro team came in at second and third, respectively.

In Brooklyn, the top individual agent was Myrel Glick of the Brooklyn Heights office, while the Peters-O’Brien team out of Williamsburg was named the top Brooklyn team.

In South Florida, the top team was the Carroll Group, led by former “Million Dollar Listing” star Chad Carroll, while the top individual was Maria Mendelsohn, who is based in Wellington.

In California, “Million Dollar Listing” stars Josh and Matt Altman took home the top spot.

Out east, the top individual prize for the Hamptons went to Michaela Keszler from the Southampton office, while the top team was led by Enzo Morabito in Bridgehampton.

The awards are based on gross commissions.

Overall, Elliman said it did $24.6 billion in total sales volume nationwide in 2016, a 10 percent increase from 2015. In New York City, Elliman closed 6,812 sales worth $14 billion in New York last year, compared to 7,119 deals worth $12.7 billion in 2015. Its overall revenue jumped 6 percent to $675.3 million.

The ceremony once again included a performance by the Radio City Rockettes.

Rendering of Bal Harbour Shops

After years of back-and-forth with the village of Bal Harbour, Whitman Family Development has again submitted plans for its $400 million expansion of Bal Harbour Shops.

The proposal comes about two months after Whitman withdrew its offer to buy the Bal Harbour Village Hall site for $15.6 million. The latest round of plans limits the expansion to land that Whitman already owns, and would increase the retail footprint by 340,387 square feet, plus additional parking, which comes to an increase of about 27 percent.

Barneys New York would open its first flagship store in the Southeastern U.S. as part of the project, in addition to new stores, restaurants and upgrades to anchor tenant Neiman Marcus.

The $400 million renovation and expansion of the high-end shops at 9700 Collins Avenue also encompasses about $100 million in community benefits, according to Whitman. That includes funding for a new Bal Harbour Village Hall and parking garage, funding to convert a village-owned parking lot into a public waterfront park, money for the village’s Art in Public Places program and improvements along 96th Street and Collins Avenue. The shops would also give the village the nearby Fairfield and SunTrust properties, which total 2 acres.

“With more than $100 million in community benefits on the table, and a plan that fits entirely within our current property, our hope is that the Village Council will now give this plan a fair, thoughtful review,” president and CEO Matthew Whitman Lazenby said in a press release.

As recent as last May, Whitman submitted plans without the village hall site.

The expansion plans that involved buying the village hall site were strongly opposed by Assistant Mayor Patricia Cohen and by some residents and other activists who had submitted two petitions that would make it more difficult for Bal Harbour Shops to expand. The petitions were later invalidated by both the village and the county on grounds that the signatures lacked affadavits.

Whitman had also filed two lawsuits against the village and Cohen, which were both dismissed in late February, Miami-Dade Circuit records show.

Bal Harbour, meanwhile, increased its footprint when it purchased the site of the former Church by the Sea for $30 million in February of 2016.

The village council will vote on the new plans next month. – Katherine Kallergis

The Standard Hotel on the High Line and Andre Balazs (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: André Balazs, founder of the Mercer and Standard hotels, stepped down as chair of the Standard hotels brand.

The hotelier left the board of Standard International, the company that controls five Standard hotels, including the Standard High Line. The hotelier will retain a 20 percent stake in the company as well as a stake in some individual hotels, the Financial Times reported.

Balazs, who launched the Standard brand 18 years ago, described the move as a “friendly parting of ways,” according to the newspaper. The company is in the midst of developing a 270-room hotel in London, and the hotelier told the paper he was “no longer involved with the design or any other aspect of the development of the London Standard.”

Balazs said he’d have more time to work on new projects, namely ultra-luxury hotels.

“The lack of uniqueness in the luxury sector is lamentable,” he told the publication. “I think we changed the affordable category. I think the luxury market is crying for exactly that.”

Balazs spun off the Standard brand from Andre Balazs Properties in 2013. He sold an 80 percent stake of Standard International, the business that runs his hotels, to private investors for an undisclosed price.

In 2014, Standard International paid $400 million, or about $1.2 million per room for the Standard High Line. [FT] — E.B. Solomont

Scenes from the Downtown Los Angeles soiree

From the Los Angeles website: The Real Deal raised its glass to some of L.A.’s most prominent commercial real estate executives on Tuesday as it celebrated the one-year anniversary of the magazine’s launch into the Los Angeles market.

Luminaries such as John Cushman III and Nelson Rising gathered for the event at Chaya in Downtown Los Angeles where guests shared a variety of large dishes from paella to prime angus ribeye. [more]

Downtown Miami (Credit Azeez Bakare Studios). Inset: Airbnb founders Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia

As the battle between the hotel industry and Airbnb heats up in Miami and Miami Beach, a new report backed by the American Hotel & Lodging Association shows the Miami market had the highest share of revenue from multi-unit hosts of any market in the U.S. 

The report, conducted by CBRE Hotels America, looked at Airbnb’s bookings from October 2014 to September 2016, and found that nearly 58 percent of Airbnb’s total revenue in Miami came from hosts with multiple units. Oahu came in second in the U.S. with 53.5 percent, followed by New Orleans with 42.3 percent.

The report also found that 89 percent of Airbnb revenue in Miami comes from entire-home rentals, and that revenue generated by multi-unit, entire-home hosts increased by 105 percent during the two-year period to more than $105 million.

CBRE used data from Airdna on Airbnb’s 13 largest markets, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and New York, and excluded inactive listings that did not have a booking over the previous month.

AHLA’s report, which is called “Hosts with Multiple Units – A Key Driver of Airbnb Growth” claims that Airbnb in Miami is “moving even further away from true home sharing” and that the short-term rental giant is “exacerbating the affordable housing crisis in cities across the country.”

Airbnb issued a statement on Thursday denouncing the report. “This misleading, inaccurate report was bought and paid for by the big hotels and is the latest example of the industry’s willingness to say and do anything to protect their record profits, preserve their ability to price gouge consumers and squash their competition,” Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit said. “As the AHLA already knows, many of their member inns, motels and hotels list rooms on our platform, so these are included in the very data on ‘commercial’ listings the big hotels seem so concerned about.”

It’s not the first time Airbnb and AHLA go head to head.

Last year, AHLA issued a report showing that more than three quarters of Airbnb revenue in Miami came from operators who listed their properties for more than 180 days of the year. Airbnb called it “factually inaccurate” and “paid for by the hotel industry.”

Top Airbnb cities in Miami-Dade like Miami and Miami Beach are fighting illegal short-term rentals. Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said Thursday that he believes daily rentals create a nuisance in the city’s residential neighborhood. “The pricey lobbyists from Airbnb will tell us that we can make a deal,” Regalado said. “There’s nothing to negotiate.”

Under the city of Miami’s current zoning code, daily and weekly rentals of residential properties are illegal. However, busting Airbnb users is not so easy. Code enforcers can only cite property owners if they receive a complaint to investigate illegal rentals. In addition, officers must witness the violation for a code enforcement violation to move forward. A vote on a Regalado-sponsored resolution requiring the city to “vigorously” enforce its zoning laws was deferred until later this month.

Airbnb announced Thursday that it brought in more than $1 billion during its latest round of fundraising, valuing the nine-year-old hospitality startup at at $31 billion.

Rendering of condos at 2511 Pierce Street in Hollywood

The Hollywood Planning and Development Board approved an eight-unit condo building, despite opposition from neighbors who say the developer has ignored their concerns on the project.

The contemporary two-story building, to be located at 2511 Pierce Street in Hollywood’s north central neighborhood, will include residences ranging from 707 square feet to 2,400 square feet.

A handful of neighbors registered their dissatisfaction with the proposal at the board’s meeting Thursday, saying their concerns hadn’t been taken into account by the developer, Alex Goihman.

Board member Cliff Germano grilled Goihman on requests from the neighbors to add more parking and to move a street-facing overhang.

Goihman admitted taking no action on those concerns, saying any addition to parking would have required a code variance, and that his architect had recommended against moving the overhang to the back, as the neighbors had suggested.

“We do not want to see people sitting out smoking, doing whatever they do,” said one member of the community, but during deliberation, board member Ed O’Donnell countered with a rhetorical question: “Is it legal to stand out in front of your building?”

The proposal finished with a bit of suspense, coming down to board chair John Passalacqua’s tie-breaking final vote. In the end, the proposal was granted with the condition that the developer add a privacy rail around the terrace.

Far less controversial Thursday night was a re-zone request in the Liberia neighborhood, submitted by the Broward Alliance for Neighborhood Development, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing housing to low- and moderate-income people.

Rendering of Crispus Commons

The plans for 12 townhouses at the northwest corner of Evans Street and Southwest 12th Avenue are the second phase of a development called Crispus Commons. Each townhouse is set to include three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and a one-car garage, with between 1,400 square feet and 1,600 square feet of living space.

City Planner Alexandra Carcamo noted that the change — from medium-residential single family (RS-6) to low-density multi-family (RM-9) — does not significantly change the area density, and that the project’s design closely follows that of the first phase of Crispus Commons, a series of single-family homes across Evans Street.

“We wanted to keep something that’s very friendly to the neighborhood,” said Kemissa Collins, BAND’s real estate development analyst. “It’s nothing that would shock.”

That request was passed unanimously without any discussion from the board.

From the New York website: On March 9, The Real Deal celebrated the official launch of our new real estate and research division, TRData, with a Big Data + Real Estate Forum in Midtown Manhattan. The event saw some of New York City’s most knowledgeable Big Data and technology executives come together for two panels about the future of tech in real estate and how data is being harnessed in innovative and exciting ways.

The first panel, moderated by TRD‘s Hiten Samtani, brought together David Eisenberg, SVP of CBRE; Yale Fox, CEO of Rentlogic; Caren Maio, CEO of Nestio; Michael Mandel, CEO of CompStak; and Richard Sarkis, CEO of Reonomy. The topic was big data and how its use could shake-up the way home-buying and investing works.

Check out the above video to watch the panel in full.

For more videos, visit The Real Deal’s YouTube page.

From left: Maren Kasper, Donald Trump and Ben Carson (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: When Fannie Mae agreed to back $1 billion in single-family rental debt from Blackstone Group’s Invitation Homes, the National Association of Realtors didn’t take it very well.

“These investors do not expand the affordable housing stock,” NAR President William Brown wrote to Federal Housing Finance Agency director Mel Watt in January. “Rather, in this limited market they drive up the price of rents and remove affordable inventory from the hands of American homeowners.”

Now, the group that advocates for homeownership may have another reason to keep writing letters.

Earlier this week, ProPublica published a list of more than 400 Trump administration officials working across the federal government’s major departments. The list includes a number of officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, such as its “Senior White House Advisor,” Maren Kasper. Kasper most recently served as a director at Roofstock, an Oakland-based investment platform for single-family rental homes. Its CEO Gary Beasley has described the firm as an E-Trade for real estate.

Roofstock launched a year ago and offers investors opportunities to buy single-family homes in seven states. Its list of prominent investors includes Bain Capital Ventures, StubHub co-founder Jeff Fluhr and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff. To provide its buyers with financing, Roofstock partners with lenders like Colony American Finance, a company founded by Trump confidante, campaign adviser and inauguration committee head Tom Barrack, whose single-family home giant Colony American Homes merged with Starwood’s Waypoint Residential Trust last year, creating a REIT with more than 30,000 homes under ownership.

Before moving to Roofstock, Kasper worked at the home-flipping and single-family rental lender Dwell Finance, which is owned by B2R (which is currently owned by a Blackstone fund). According to a page on the NYU Stern School of Business’ website, she founded the elderly-focused, single-family rental service HoneyCo Homes.

Request for comment directed at a spokesperson for the White House was redirected to the White House press office, which did not respond. Gary Beasley, the CEO of Roofstock, also did not respond to a request for comment, nor did a representative for Barrack. A spokesperson for HUD confirmed that Kasper is working as a senior adviser, but declined further comment.

According to Politico, department-focused advisers are expected to maintain constant contact between the White House and their respective departments of focus, and duties will include signing off on major decisions.

Having one of their own at the White House could be a shot in the arm for the single-family rental industry. Greg Rand, the CEO of OwnAmerica, a brokerage for single-family rental investors, told The Real Deal he was excited to learn of the appointment. Rand is hopeful that the Federal Housing Administration under HUD Secretary Ben Carson will move to make low-rate, multifamily FHA loans available to single-family rental investors.

“That would be a gangbusters benefit to the creation of more rental stock,” Rand said, adding that appointing someone like Kasper was “an indicator” that things are looking up for the industry. He described the opposition single-family rental investment has faced from homeowner groups as “shortsighted.”

After the financial crisis, small and large investors alike saw an opportunity in a single-family housing market crippled by foreclosure. Companies like Blackstone’s Invitation Homes began buying-up single-family homes nationwide and in 2013, purchased 1,400 Atlanta homes in a single day. Invitation Homes announced an initial public offering in December. A number of big players in the industry have clout with the current administration. Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, was being considered for the position of treasury secretary and met Trump shortly after the election. Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s ultimate pick, has been accused of skirting federal rules while foreclosing on thousands of homeowners during his tenure as chairman of OneWest Bank.

Following Fannie Mae’s single-family rental deal with Blackstone, Freddie Mac is also considering backing such loans, sources told Bloomberg this week.

Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, has proposed more favorable financing options for single-family rental investment as a way to bolster affordable housing nationwide. In a 2015 report, its researchers advised allowing single-family investors access to HUD multifamily loan programs as well as the low income housing tax credit (LIHTC). The report also suggested a name change for the single-family rental industry: “multisite multifamily”

From left: CIC Chairman Ding Xuedong and Airbnb founders Nathan Blecharczyk, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: China’s sovereign wealth fund bought a stake in Airbnb through its latest funding round, which valued the home-sharing startup at $31 billion.

The state-backed China Investment Corporation contributed 10 percent to the latest $1 billion funding round, according to a filing with U.S. securities regulators cited by Sky News.

CIC, which owns stakes in companies such as Heathrow Airport Holdings and London’s private Thames Water utility, is one of 40 investors in the San Francisco company’s latest round.

Airbnb turned a profit for the first time in fall of 2016, and in the company was reportedly in advanced talks to buy its largest Chinese rival, Xiaozhu.com.

CIC’s investment is seen as evidence of the strategic importance the Chinese market plays for technology companies such as Airbnb. The latest funding round suggests the startup is likely to pursue an initial public offering sometime in the near future.

In 2016, CIC was active in New York City real estate, with purchases of minority stakes in the trophy office towers 1221 Sixth Avenue in Midtown and 1 New York Plaza in the Financial District.

Airbnb is reportedly considering getting into the long-term rental business. [Sky] – Rich Bockmann

West Palm Beach in 2012 (Credit: Getty Images)

Panelists at a real estate development and investment forum in West Palm Beach on Friday underscored the city’s success in attracting new businesses and millennials, but pointed out that a lack of available commercial space and traffic problems are impediments to continued economic growth, sustainability and quality of life.

“You’ve seen all the cranes and construction activity in West Palm Beach,” said  Mark Pateman, managing principal for Palm Beach County at Cushman Wakefield. “Those cranes are not building commercial space,” he told attendees at the conference organized by the Urban Land Institute Southeast Florida/Caribbean, held at the Hilton West Palm Beach.

Pateman said that the city’s commercial space is virtually full. Contributing to this, there have been no major new office buildings developed since 2008. Also, tenants moving into office buildings in past years often have expanded to take over available space in existing buildings, and office tenants in Palm Beach have relocated to West Palm Beach. The number of new tenants in the area has been relatively small. “I hope developers build more office space here,” he said.

Pateman and other speakers noted that West Palm Beach was a prime example of  “the Florida story,” which includes nice weather, an expanding economy, low taxes, excellent restaurants, good schools and an attractive range of cultural, artistic and recreational offerings. The city welcomes new business, helps speed up permitting and sometimes provides financial help to upgrade infrastructure for projects.

It already ranks as one of the country’s most attractive cities, the panelists said. But to remain competitive among other Florida cities, as well metropolitan areas throughout the country looking to attract new business, West Palm Beach must add new commercial space and advance other initiatives like improving mobility.

While not suffering from Miami’s gridlock, urban traffic congestion is a serious problem in West Palm Beach. Some forum attendees got a taste of the morning traffic headache as they drove to the Hilton along crowded Okeechobee Boulevard, a main east-west artery in the city.

Two ongoing projects will be “game changers” for the city, panelists said. Replacement of the Flagler Memorial Bridge linking West Palm Beach to the Town of Palm Beach is close to completion and will alleviate traffic between the two municipalities.

Also, Brightline – the privately developed fast express train that will link Orlando and Miami – is scheduled to begin service in late July between West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, relieving some drivers of the nightmare traffic on I-95 at peak travel hours. The line to Orlando is still under development. 

This new express service should help change the public’s perception about riding a train and is expected to impact auto traffic between the two cities.

To address downtown traffic problems directly, speakers said, the city needs to develop new public transit options and encourage people to bike, walk, carpool and share rides.

And adding new space to existing streets — a traditional remedy across the country — is not the answer. “Expanding roadways is the equivalent of  buying bigger pants to deal with a weight problem,” said Nick Uhren, executive director of the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization. “We need to encourage people to walk, bike and ride public transit,” he said. “Not just drive.”

One company, pg3m’s Skybike, is aggressively promoting bicycle rentals in West Palm Beach. “We have 14 downtown locations and 150 bikes,” said Chris Hall, pg3m’s marketing and project manager. “Skybike is a first- and last-mile alternative, and renting a bike for 30 minutes costs less than a bus ride,” he said. The company is planning to expand and is encouraging people to use the colorful bikes for moving around the downtown area.

One of the revitalization projects discussed at the forum was The Warehouse District. This ongoing initiative is redeveloping a series of old industrial warehouses on 85,000 square feet southwest of downtown West Palm Beach and close to the city center, said William Earl, vice president of development for The Warehouse District.

The project, coming on stream in stages, will include a brewing company, retail markets, shared workspaces, a squash court, fitness center, an urban garden and a courtyard with green space, public art and murals.

Charles Cohen, president and CEO of Cohen Brothers Realty Corp., described an impressive redevelopment of the old Carefree Theater and adjacent property on South Dixie Highway that covers two blocks.

The project involves converting the theater into six auditoriums to screen classic and artistic films. Cohen, a developer and film producer who owns the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach and has carried out iconic projects in New York City over the last 40 years, said that the Carefree project will include restaurant space, rental apartments, commercial showroom spaces and underground parking. The idea is to build a new cultural destination.

Gopal Rajegowda, senior vice president at the Related Companies, shared his experience in developing new spaces for businesses at the Houston Yards redevelopment in New York City. These commercial developments often are large spaces with high ceilings, plenty of daylight and “edgy” designs — far different from office spaces (cubicles and offices) that were common years ago.

“By 2050, predictions are that 70 percent of people in the world will live in urban environments,”  Rajegowda said.

And cities need to attract and retain creative, millennial talent. “Companies ask, where do my employees want to be?” he said. Some of the main features that companies and employees want when they consider setting up a new business or relocating include easy access to a mixed-use environment; good food, beverage and retail options; exciting art and cultural setting; cool architecture; great schools; transportation options, and a vibrant public environment, Rajegowda said.

The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences at The Surf Club will begin welcoming guests on March 27, and at the same time will launch Le Sirenuse Miami Restaurant and Champagne Bar in the revamped historic Russell Pancoast-designed Surf Club.

The north tower of condominiums, adjacent to the hotel, also just received its temporary certificate of occupancy, developer Nadim Ashi, CEO of Fort Partners told The Real Deal. He said $1 billion in condos have already been sold and closings are underway.

The 72-room hotel at 9011 Collins Avenue in Surfside is on the site of the former private beach club founded in 1930 by Henry Firestone Club, and now retains the club’s former grandeur.

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier of New York-based Richard Meier & Partners, the entrance and expansive lobby lead to an art gallery of past photos. Beyond that is the champagne bar and restaurant, built on the site of the club’s former ballroom.

Le Sirenuse will be the first foreign outpost for the Positano, Italy-based restaurant at Hotel Le Sirenuse, owned by Antonio Sersale. The Miami restaurant will offer the same menu, seating, plates and glassware as the original Le Sirenuse, Carla Sersale told TRD.

Chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller also plans to open a restaurant in the original Surf Club structure in early 2018.

A tour of the rooms revealed classic luxurious design with subtle earth tones and neutral colors. Rooms take up floors 5 to 12 of the 12-story hotel with rates ranging from $799 per night to $1,249 per night, Brad Mumford, assistant director of rooms said. A second phase with five condo suites and 28 hotel residences is still in the works.

The interiors of the guest rooms and public spaces were designed by Joseph Dirand of Joseph Dirand Architecture.

Overall, the 9-acre, mixed-use oceanfront development includes the hotel, two 12-story residential towers, a private club, two restaurants, four swimming pools, cabanas, a gym, oceanside gardens and a park – all designed by Meier. It has 965 feet of ocean frontage. Fort Partners paid $116 million for the site in 2012.

Condo units range in price from $3.4 million to $18 million, and in size from 1,400 square feet to more than 7,000 square feet. Ashi said the average price per square foot is $2,400. Ninety percent of buyers are from the United States, with 80 percent of the total from the Northeast, he said. They were drawn to a combination of Meier’s architecture, the blending of old and new and the Four Seasons connection, Ashi said. “The Four Seasons has a great American following, he added.

Surfside is in the midst of significant redevelopment, where other projects include the recently completed Fendi Chateau Residences, Jason Halpern’s planned luxury boutique condo Surf House, as well as a joint venture between Israel-based ASRR Capital and Istanbul-based Suzer Group on a project a block away from the Surf Club.

Photos by Katherine Kallergis