Hello Brick Brief readers, 

Happy Friday. Today we’re seeing housing supply rise as turnover slows, office attendance improve driven by tech-led gains, and Blackstone make several large moves across real estate and infrastructure.

🏡 Listings Rise As Turnover Freezes
Housing supply is building through slower turnover rather than a wave of new sellers entering the market. Active listings jumped 17.9% YoY to the highest November level since 2015 while new listings fell 1.7% YoY as rate locked homeowners pulled back, keeping median prices firm at $385K and up 2.4% YoY.

🏢 Office Attendance Improves But Stays Below Pre Pandemic Levels
Office usage continues to recover unevenly with stronger gains concentrated in tech driven markets. Average daily visits reached the strongest November since 2019 but still remained 36.3% below pre pandemic levels, with San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and Boston posting some of the strongest YoY growth while New York softened seasonally.

⚡ Blackstone Steps Up Deal Activity
Blackstone has executed several large transactions across infrastructure, retail, and housing in recent weeks. The firm agreed to acquire MacLean Power Systems for over $4B, bought a $440M grocery anchored retail portfolio across Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, and secured a $3.15B refinancing for the rent stabilized Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village mulifamily portfolio in Manhattan.

Fed signals pause after 25 bps cut amid data gaps – Inflation remains elevated, economic data is incomplete, and Fed guidance diverges from market rate-cut expectations (Reuters)

US jobless claims jump 44,000 for week ended December 6 on seasonal noise – Claims hit 236,000, but the four-week average stayed near trend, signaling labor market stability (Reuters)

US labor cost growth slows in Q3 as job market cools – Employment costs rose 0.8% QoQ and 3.5% YoY, reinforcing the Fed’s view that wages are no longer a key inflation driver (Reuters)

House Republicans strip housing affordability bill from $925B defense package – The Road to Housing Act was removed from the NDAA despite Senate passage, stalling federal zoning and supply reforms aimed at easing the national housing shortage (Bisnow)

Los Angeles makes fast-track affordable housing law – The city codified ED1, cutting permit timelines to weeks for 100% affordable projects as it pushes to add supply amid low vacancy and rents about 32% above the national average (CoStar)

Fed rate cut may nudge mortgage rates lower, but relief could be limited – A 25 bps cut does not guarantee cheaper mortgages as inflation remains sticky, labor markets show resilience, and the Fed signals fewer cuts than markets expect (Homes.com)

Home prices rise 2.4% YoY in November as inventory jumps – Median home price held at $385K for a third straight month while listings surged 17.9% YoY to the highest November level since 2015, signaling a more balanced housing market (Homes.com)

New listings fall 1.7% YoY in sharpest drop in 2 years – Seller pullback and weak demand pushed pending sales down 4.1%, lifted median prices 2%, and tightened supply even as mortgage rates slipped near 6.2% (Redfin)

Insight: Listings are rising because existing inventory is accumulating from slower turnover while new listings are falling as rate locked homeowners pull back, leaving prices firm even as the market gradually rebalances.

US home price growth slows to 1.1% YoY in October – Price declines spread to 32 of the 100 largest metros as rising inventory and affordability pressures drive the broadest housing market softening since the early 2010s (Cotality)

Housing affordability remains deeply strained in Q3 2025 – Buyers need about $110K in income to afford a typical home leaving just 38% of U.S. households able to buy as high mortgage rates and insurance costs persist (HousingWire)

Homeownership rose to 65.3% as vacancies increased – Owner vacancy climbed to 1.2% and rental vacancy to 7.1% as inventory rebuilt from extremely tight levels (Redfin)

50 bps rate shopping saves buyers $1,100 a year – Cutting a mortgage rate by half a point on a typical $360K home would have made roughly 22,000 more listings affordable, yet nearly 70% of buyers still apply with only one lender (Zillow)

Office attendance posts strongest November since 2019 – Average visits per working day hit a five-year high in November 2025, even as total visits remained 36.3% below November 2019 due to fewer working days (Placerai)

Miami extends office occupancy lead over New York – Seasonal weather and shorter, car-based commutes helped Miami widen its advantage as NYC office attendance softened with colder temperatures and transit-heavy commutes (Placerai)

Tech hubs lead YoY gains – San Francisco posted some of the strongest YoY office visit growth nationwide; Denver, Chicago, and Boston also showing solid increases driven by tech and AI-related activity (Placerai)

JPMorgan Chase nears a 250K SF office lease at South Station Tower in Boston, MA – Hines is in talks to land the bank as the anchor tenant at the 51-story trophy tower (TheRealDeal)

HITT inks a 27K SF lease at 31 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, NY – Vanbarton Group signed the general contractor to a full-floor, 10-year deal at the recently repositioned office tower (CommercialObserver)

AXA warns on data center financing risks as private credit strains rise – The insurer is avoiding specialized AI data centers in favor of inference and general-purpose assets (Bloomberg) 

Tidal Real Estate Partners secures $400M of construction financing for The Nashville Edition Hotel & Residences in Nashville, TN – Madison Realty Capital provided a $265M senior construction loan; KSL Capital supplied mezzanine debt through Flank GP Fund I (CommercialObserver)

Panepinto Properties secures $384M construction financing package for the 678-unit Harborside 8 multifamily tower in Jersey City, NJ – Kennedy Wilson provided a $306M senior loan; Affinius Capital supplied $78M of preferred equity (CommercialObserver)

SK Development and the Berger Organization secure a $239M construction financing package for the 395-unit 22 Fulton Street multifamily tower in Newark, NJ – Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group provided a $119M construction loan; two institutional investors supplied an additional $120M of debt and preferred equity (CommercialObserver)

Landau Properties, Third Millennium Group and Midtown Equities secure $113M of acquisition and pre-development financing for a residential tower at 205 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, NY – Northwind Group provided the senior loan; Atlas Capital Group supplied $25M of preferred equity (CommercialObserver)

Blackstone secures a $3.15B refinancing for the Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village apartment complex in Manhattan, NY – Wells Fargo originated the mortgage, replacing Blackstone’s maturing Fannie Mae debt tied to the 11,200-unit rent-stabilized portfolio (Bisnow)

Macquarie makes a roughly $200M preferred equity investment in Brookfield’s Waterside Plaza multifamily complex in Manhattan, NY as part of an $800M recap – Brookfield retained ownership of the 1,471-unit Kips Bay property (CommercialObserver)

Apollo explores $3B-plus exit for membership club operator Invited – The firm is weighing a sale or IPO of the 200-plus club platform amid a surge in golf and membership club dealmaking (Reuters)

Private equity buyers have recently stepped up acquisitions of golf resorts and Topgolf style entertainment assets.

Blackstone agrees to acquire utility equipment maker MacLean Power Systems in a $4B+ deal – The firm plans to merge MacLean with portfolio company Power Grid Components to create a leading supplier of electric grid infrastructure amid surging data center–driven power demand (Bloomberg)

Insight: This deal builds on Blackstone’s recent $1.6B acquisition of Texas-based electrical services firm Shermco; Blackstone’s recent M&A activity shows that it’s playing the data center boom through both electric grid services and grid equipment.

Blackstone agrees to acquire a $440M portfolio of grocery-anchored retail centers across Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, TX – The roughly 2M SF portfolio deepens the firm’s bet on necessity-based retail with tenants like H-E-B and Kroger (Bloomberg)

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing buys a 55K SF medical condo unit at 175 Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for $56M – Delancey Street Associates sold the three-floor NYU Langone–occupied property within the Goldin at Essex Crossing (CommercialObserver)

Bender Companies and Eastham Capital buy the 509-unit Element workforce apartment complex in Mount Prospect within the Chicago, IL metro for $75.3M – Monument Capital Management sold the suburban multifamily property after acquiring it in 2017 (TheRealDeal)

Turnbridge Equities buys the SilverRock Resort development site in La Quinta within the Palm Springs, CA metro for $65M out of bankruptcy – The unfinished 130-acre resort was acquired at a steep discount and is slated for a luxury hotel, branded condominiums and estate homes (TheRealDeal) 

Rent reporting fintech Esusu raises $50M in a Series C round – The company plans to scale credit-building programs that help renters boost credit scores by reporting on-time rent payments (NationalMortgageNews)