RealEstateNews 5.27.25
Weekly News Roundup
- Wealthy Betting on Ultra-Luxury Market
- Senior Living Leading Real Estate
- Office Recovers, Except Portland
Wealthy Betting on Ultra-Luxury Market
Despite a chill in the overall housing market, ultraluxury home sales in areas like New York, South Florida and Los Angeles are accelerating as the wealthy buyers bet on real estate’s long-term value. Since February, the number of homes sold for $10 million or more has surged in major markets nationwide, according to an exclusive analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Between Feb. 1 and May 1, sales at that price point in Palm Beach, Fla., surged 50% from the same period last year, while sales in Miami-Dade County jumped 48.5% year-over-year, according to public records and local multiple listing service data. In the luxury ski destination of Aspen, Colo., sales jumped 43.75% in that same period, followed by Los Angeles County at 29% and Manhattan at 21%.
When President Trump’s tariffs were first announced, some wealthy buyers tapped the brakes and backed out of deals. In recent weeks, however, real-estate observers have been surprised to see a wave of big-ticket sales across the country. Palm Beach real-estate agent Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group, who has brokered two roughly $50 million deals in the last month, said buyers are turning to real estate because it’s a tangible asset. “It’s just a safe place to put your money to ride out this wave and see what transpires,” he said.
Home buyers at lower price points, by contrast, are holding off on buying and selling amid the chaos, agents said. For Miami homes below $20 million, for example, listing prices have dropped 10% to 20% since the start of the trade war, said agent Danny Hertzberg of Coldwell Banker. “The most bullish buyers seem to be the highest-net worth buyers,” said Hertzberg, who knows of at least three Miami homes in contract to sell for $40 million or more. “The rest of the market is soft—frozen in some aspects—whereas the top of the market is accelerating in the number of sales and prices.” Source: Wall Street Journal
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Senior Living Leading Real Estate
For the first time in nearly two decades, senior living occupancy is outperforming other commercial real estate (CRE) sectors, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC). Last year, NIC released its SHARK report that offered insights into demographic-driven demand, new construction of communities and outlook on occupancy. In the first quarter of 2025, average senior living industry occupancy reached 87.4%. That fits with NIC projections that average senior living occupancy will pass peak levels not seen since 2008.
Senior living occupancy growth in the industry’s top 99 primary and secondary markets exceeded that of other sectors, including apartment, strip malls, office and industrial properties, according to NIC Senior Principal Omar Zahraoui. While he noted that could draw more investors to the space, labor, immigration policy and tariffs continue to complicate operations and new development. In a 2024 Urban Land Institute poll, senior housing ranked behind only data centers in projected risk-adjusted returns through 2028.
“By 2026, stronger demand, combined with a potential undersupply of new inventory, is expected to drive upward pressure on pricing, and developers will need to take a thoughtful approach aligning rising development costs with affordable rent,” Zahraoui wrote. By the end of next year, senior living occupancy in “most regions” is projected to surpass peak levels last seen in 2008, with the North Central, Mountain and Southwest regions being the “closest” to reach 2008 historic census levels. Source: Senior Housing News
Office Recovers, Except Portland
Many cities across the U.S. are starting to recover from what has been one of the worst office downturns of the past 75 years. Businesses leased more office space during the first three months of 2025 than in any quarter since 2019. That turnaround stretches from New York to San Francisco, after companies summoned workers back to the office and their return boosted local businesses. But Portland’s commercial real-estate market shows few signs of recovering from the fallout of the pandemic, rise in homelessness and the state’s botched experiment with drug decriminalization.
Portland’s first-quarter office vacancy rate at 35% was the highest among the 25 largest central business districts in the U.S., according to real-estate firm Colliers. After Digital Trends moved out of the U.S. Bancorp Tower in Portland, Ore., the technology publisher didn’t hold back about why it left. The property, once a premier address in the city, was afflicted with “vagrants sleeping in hallways of vacant office floors.” They were “starting fires in stairwells, smoking fentanyl and defecating in common areas,” according to papers the company filed in a lease-termination lawsuit.
Two years later, the city’s biggest office tower stands more than half empty. U.S. Bank, the largest tenant whose parent company’s name is on the building, pulled most of its employees out last year after more than a century in the city. The 42-story tower was recently put up for sale. The building affectionately known as Big Pink because of its pink-hued Spanish granite and pink glazed glass has an asking price of about $70 million, according to brokers. That is more than 80% below what the owners paid for it a decade ago. The troubles at Big Pink offer a potent symbol of what ails downtown Portland. Source: Wall Street Journal