Hello Brick Brief readers, 

Thank you for your continued support! Today we’re seeing Redfin forecast improved housing affordability in 2026, AI boosting San Francisco luxury housing and hospitality, and new AI tools expanding their role in CRE financial modeling. 

🏡 Affordability Begins to Improve in 2026
Redfin expects 2026 to open the first window of improved affordability as lower mortgage rates and faster wage growth give buyers slightly more room to participate. Redfin also sees political momentum shifting toward supply reform as both parties push ADU expansion, manufactured housing rules and zoning changes to lower long-run costs.

🌆 AI Wealth Lifts San Francisco Luxury Housing
AI wealth is driving a sharp revival in San Francisco’s luxury market as $5M+ transactions rose over 40% YoY as competitive bidding returned to high-end neighborhoods. At the same time, Blackstone is acquiring the Four Seasons for $130M as the manager sees new AI investment supporting a strong rebound in city travel and hospitality.

📊 AI Tools Expand in CRE Financial Modeling
BuiltAI raised a $6M seed round to accelerate financial modeling and portfolio analysis by automating time-consuming underwriting steps for CRE investors. Today’s AI tools can boost output but they cannot completely replace analysts because the models still hallucinate, which means firms still need human judgment and supervision even if efficiency gains may lead to leaner teams over time.

The OECD expects U.S. and global growth to cool as tariffs bite – It sees the U.S. slowing to 1.7% next year, with a chance for stronger momentum if the AI investment boom broadens (WSJ)

Commercial real estate is starting to look too cheap to ignore – After years of falling values and weak returns, CRE now screens as one of the few fairly priced U.S. assets and could offer shelter if an AI-driven market bubble bursts (WSJ)

Redfin’s outlook suggests 2026 will mark the early stages of an affordability thaw as easing mortgage rates and faster wage growth give buyers a little more room to act. Bipartisan momentum around supply reforms signals broader political commitment to reducing housing costs.

Redfin sees 2026 as the start of a long housing reset - Wages will outpace home prices and mortgage rates will drift to the low-6% range, slowly easing affordability (Redfin)

Redfin expects modest demand recovery - Home sales will rise 3% as buyers get limited relief while high costs will lead to more roommates, multigenerational living and delayed family formation (Redfin)

Redfin anticipates broader political alignment on housing – Leaders from both parties will roll out supply-focused legislation, ADU changes and manufactured housing measures to chip away at high costs (Redfin)

Zombie-mortgage collectors are reviving pre-GFC second-lien mortgages and forcing homeowners to pay large surprise balances – Many borrowers thought these loans were canceled years ago, but collectors are now using them to push foreclosures (Bloomberg)

Insight: During the mid-2000s, millions of homeowners took out second-lien mortgages (often HELOCs or piggyback loans) to buy homes with little down. When the GFC hit, many of those loans went delinquent. Banks often wrote them off on their books, stopped sending statements, or sold them for pennies to debt buyers. Many of those liens were never legally canceled, so debt buyers and PE-backed collectors are now resurfacing them and forcing surprise payoffs or threatening foreclosure as rising home equity makes the old paper suddenly valuable again.

AI wealth is igniting a surge in San Francisco luxury sales – Secondary payouts at OpenAI, Anthropic and Scale AI pushed $5M+ transactions over 40% YoY as bidding wars return and prices hit their highest since 2022 (Bloomberg)

Redfin forecasts rising rents in 2026 – Apartment demand will grow as new supply fades and more households rent instead of buy (Redfin)

U.S. port imports soften but remain resilient – September volumes fell 8.4% YoY with China-origin shipments down 22.9%, yet year-to-date activity still exceeds 2024 (Colliers)

Freight rates show mixed momentum – Dry van and reefer prices rose on seasonal demand while flatbed, ocean and intermodal rates slipped amid weak construction and excess capacity (Colliers)

Amazon launches 30-minute delivery pilot with specialized warehouses – The Amazon Now program in Seattle and Philadelphia uses smaller urban hubs to meet surging demand for everyday essentials and could drive new industrial space needs (Bisnow)

Walmart invests $350M in a new 300K SF Georgia milk plant – The facility will supply 650 Southeast stores as Walmart expands private-label dairy processing and adds over 400 jobs (Reuters)

Tyson Foods cuts two beef plants amid a historic cattle shortage – Nearly 5,000 jobs will be eliminated as the company shuts a major Nebraska facility and scales back operations in Texas (CoStar)

Retailers are backfilling vacant space again – Companies like Dollar Tree and Tractor Supply expanded in Q3 as strong spending and tariff adaptation helped push retail absorption positive by 5.5 million square feet (WSJ)

Darden heads into the holidays with strengthening foot traffic – Q3 visits rose 3.0% YoY, October traffic climbed 4.5% and same-restaurant gains at Olive Garden and LongHorn ranged from 1% to 6% YoY (Placer.ai)

Sycamore Partners evaluates hundreds of Walgreens stores for reuse – The new owner controls roughly 470 locations worth $2.5B and is weighing closures, lease resets and conversions to grocery, discount retail or medical uses (CommercialObserver)

Insight: To improve Walgreens’ profitability, Sycamore will likely cut costs by closing weaker stores, renegotiating long-term leases and shedding locations that no longer justify their rent, which creates real downside risk for NNN landlords holding older suburban boxes. Walgreens leases the land at most of its sites, which prevents Sycamore from executing the typical PE playbook of sale-leasebacks to extract dividends and instead pushes the firm toward an optimization strategy built around shrinkage, consolidation and selective repositioning.

Oracle’s credit-default risk just hit its highest level since 2009 – Heavy bond issuance, weaker ratings and massive AI spending have made Oracle the market’s preferred hedge against an AI crash as CDS prices surge (Bloomberg)

US awards $800M to spur small nuclear reactors – TVA and Holtec each receive $400M to develop Gen III+ projects as the administration pushes new fission capacity to meet soaring AI-driven power demand (Bloomberg)

Tourism Economics flags leisure destinations and 2026 World Cup host cities as hotel winners – These markets will see the strongest RevPAR gains as match schedules, stadium capacity and June seasonality lift demand (CoStar)

Luxury hotels are increasingly adding for-sale units – CoStar highlights high-end projects where condominium residences now outnumber traditional rooms as developers target affluent buyers (CoStar)

CBRE sees MOB construction falling to decade-low levels in 2026 – New outpatient supply will drop another 26% and push more occupiers into second-generation office and retail space (CBRE)

CBRE sees healthcare real estate investment rising in 2026 – Sales volumes are expected to increase as investors target MOBs near high-traffic retail corridors and high-income areas for stronger rent and occupancy (CBRE)

CBRE sees megatrends accelerating outpatient space demand – An aging population, growing healthcare spending and a larger workforce are driving stronger MOB demand despite cost and labor pressures (CBRE)

Cain and OKO Group secure a $630M CMBS refinance in Miami, FL for the 830 Brickell office tower – Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan originated the five-year interest-only debt to replace prior financing and fund $90M of improvements (CommercialObserver)

Allen Morris Company secures a $138.5M construction loan in Coconut Grove, FL for its Ziggurat mixed-use project – BDT & MSD Partners and BHI provided the financing for the planned office, condo and retail development at 3101 Grand Avenue (TheRealDeal)

Cresa acquires California project management firm CMPG – The deal adds 22 employees and a new regional office as the occupier-focused brokerage accelerates its M&A push (Bisnow)

QuadReal forms industrial JV with LaSalle through $495M recap – The deal covers 11 assets totaling 3.3M square feet across major U.S. population centers with LaSalle taking a 49% stake (IREI)

Empire State Realty Trust buys the Scholastic Building in New York, NY for $386M – Scholastic sold the SoHo office headquarters at 555–557 Broadway in an all-cash sale-leaseback where it will lease 222K SF for 15 years with two 10-year extension options (Bisnow)

Blackstone buys the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco, CA for about $130M – The 277-room luxury property sold at an estimated $470K per key as rising AI-driven demand lifts confidence in the city’s hospitality recovery (CoStar)

Nuveen closes its U.S. Strategic Debt Fund above target at $650M – The value-add credit vehicle will originate senior floating-rate CRE loans as traditional lenders pull back; over 40% of capital is already committed (Bisnow)

Crescent Communities and Heitman launch a second HARMON BTR JV with up to $340M – The new venture starts with a $240M commitment to fund six single-family build-to-rent communities across Sun Belt and emerging growth markets including Colorado (ConnectCRE)

 Debt tied to Brookfield’s Bank of America Plaza office tower in Los Angeles, CA is up for sale after a $400M default – The 1.4M SF property at 333 South Hope Street was appraised at $212.5M and is 67% leased after missing its 2024 maturity payment (TheRealDeal)

BuiltAI secures a $6M seed round – The platform uses AI to automate financial modeling and portfolio analysis for CRE investors (CommercialObserver)

Insight: BuiltAI currently provides AI-driven financial modeling and portfolio analysis tools that automate underwriting, scenario analysis and asset-level data extraction so investors can evaluate deals and manage portfolios faster and with more accuracy. However, the AI is still imperfect and may require analysts or associates to verify assumptions and outputs even if the efficiency gains may reduce the number of junior roles over time.

See you soon 🙂