Residential

  • March 03, 2025

    4th Circ. Backs Away From Contractor's Arbitration Fight

    The Fourth Circuit said Monday it doesn't have jurisdiction over a contractor's challenge to a couple's arbitration award for an incomplete home renovation project, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's holding that federal courts have jurisdiction only over motions to compel, but not vacate or confirm, arbitration awards.

  • March 03, 2025

    Treasury Halts Enforcement Of Corporate Transparency Act

    The U.S. Treasury Department won't enforce the Corporate Transparency Act on U.S. businesses and will change regulations so it only applies to foreign companies registered stateside, according to an announcement that activists said invites criminals into the U.S. and lawyers said could provoke judicial scrutiny.

  • March 03, 2025

    Lennar GC Saw Comp Rise To $3.4M In 2024

    For the second consecutive year, the general counsel of homebuilder Lennar Corp. saw an increase in overall compensation while the company's co-CEOs continued to see their earnings decrease, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

  • March 03, 2025

    Firms Raise $470M For Opportunity Zone Projects In 4 States

    Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and real estate company Silverstein Properties on Monday said they have capped a fund at $470 million to invest in a group of four multifamily and mixed-use developments in four states, with nearly 2,000 housing units and 1.5 million square feet of space between the projects.

  • March 03, 2025

    2 Firms Guide $3.2B Canadian Senior Living Portfolio Buy

    Real estate investment trust Welltower Inc. purchased a 38-property portfolio of Canadian ultra-luxury senior living communities and nine development parcels from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in a $3.2 billion deal guided by Stikeman Elliott LLP and Torys LLP, according to two announcements Sunday.

  • March 03, 2025

    NYC Real Estate Week In Review

    Weil Gotshal, Vinson & Elkins and Kanfer & Holtzer are among the law firms that picked up work on the largest New York City real estate deals that hit public records last week.

  • March 03, 2025

    Real Estate Cos. Strike $75K Deal In Time Shaving Suit

    A real estate investment company and its subsidiary will pay $75,000 to end a lawsuit alleging it underpaid cleaners by requiring them to clock out before they finished their work, according to a filing in New York federal court.

  • February 28, 2025

    Bills Look To Bolster Florida's Affordable Housing Efforts

    Housing affordability has commanded significant attention from the Florida Legislature in recent years, and it promises to be a major topic of discussion once again in the 2025 session starting Tuesday, as two recently filed bills are proposing broad actions to take on persistent challenges.

  • February 28, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs Developer's Conviction For Bribing LA Pol

    The Ninth Circuit upheld a developer's conviction for bribing former Los Angeles City Councilor Jose Huizar to foil a challenge to a downtown project, ruling Thursday the district court didn't have to instruct jurors that the government had to prove the developer bribed Huizar to take a specific, official act.

  • February 28, 2025

    Quarterly Calls: DeepSeek, Wildfires, Park Ave

    See what some of the largest real estate companies and investment firms told investors and analysts about the market and the prospects for data centers, multifamily housing and offices.

  • February 28, 2025

    Opendoor Tops Revenue Expectations But Faces Tough Market

    The new year has gotten off to a slow start in the home sales market, but leaders at Opendoor Technologies Inc. said in an earnings call that they think recent cost-saving efforts have made the home-selling platform a leaner, more efficient business.

  • February 28, 2025

    200 Organizations Fight To Protect COVID-Era Renter Rights

    More than 200 national and local organizations urged Congress on Friday not to pass bicameral legislation introduced in February that would strike down a pandemic-era protection for renters at federally backed properties, arguing the provision dramatically reduced eviction rates.

  • February 28, 2025

    Dallas-Area Officials OK Features For $2.5B Mixed-Use Project

    Planning officials in Frisco, Texas, have signed off on a parking garage, an amphitheater and a group of 10 retail and restaurant buildings for a developer's $2.5 billion project north of Dallas called Firefly Park.

  • February 28, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Gibson Dunn, Skadden

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Blackstone acquires Safe Harbor Marinas, National Grid sells its green subsidiary in the U.S. to Brookfield, Apollo Global Management buys Bridge Investment Group Holdings Inc., and Teleflex splits into two publicly traded companies.

  • February 27, 2025

    Calif. State Farm Meeting Raises Solvency Concerns

    State Farm's emergency request for a 22% premium increase in California has raised questions about the insurer's financial health, but a prominent consumer group says the carrier hasn't justified that request and several others that would raise premium costs.

  • February 27, 2025

    PennyMac Can't Avoid Investors' Suit Over Post-Libor Rate

    A California federal judge has ruled PennyMac's mortgage investment arm must face a suit accusing it of using last year's discontinuation of Libor to unlawfully lock in a lower dividend for some of its preferred stock, saying the plaintiffs have adequately pled that the company violated the LIBOR Act when it issued dividends at a fixed rate.

  • February 27, 2025

    Real Estate Fund Says Property Cos. Lost Investor Funds

    A real estate investment fund has sued various companies associated with a man accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors in an alleged $1 billion scheme, telling a Florida state court that the companies made off with millions of dollars of investor funds meant to go toward specific real estate projects.

  • February 27, 2025

    Black Homebuyers' Predatory Loan Settlement Gets Final OK

    A Michigan class of Black homebuyers have gotten final approval for their $750,000 deal to end claims against real estate companies and their investors who allegedly bought up run-down Detroit properties to sell with abusive lending terms.

  • February 27, 2025

    6 Firms Aid AvalonBay's $618.5M Texas Multifamily Buy

    Real estate investment trust AvalonBay Communities Inc. said it has reached a deal with BSR REIT to buy eight Texas apartment complexes for $618.5 million, in a transaction advised by six law firms.

  • February 27, 2025

    High Court Asked To Weigh Investors' Eminent Domain Case

    A pair of real estate investors want the U.S. Supreme Court to review their loss in New York state appellate court regarding a suit seeking additional compensation for a residential property that the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority took from them through eminent domain.

  • February 27, 2025

    HUD Scraps Rule To Boost Housing Equity

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it is scrapping a fair housing rule and replacing it with a less onerous alternative, overwriting a rule that the first Trump administration had previously repealed.

  • February 27, 2025

    Landlords Can't Duck Injury Claim From Dweller Not On Lease

    A Washington state appeals court said Thursday that landlords must face a claim from a pregnant woman who was injured from a fall down a flight of stairs, even though she had not signed the rental lease, in an opinion that said the lower court erred by tossing the case on the eve of trial without giving proper notice.

  • February 27, 2025

    Starwood Execs Say Multifamily Starts Will Keep Dropping

    Starwood Property Trust executives said on a Feb. 27 earnings call that they believe impending tariffs and immigration policy will drive rents up and multifamily starts down, even as the company reported foreclosing on three multifamily properties in the fourth quarter.

  • February 27, 2025

    Wildfires Threaten Over $2T Worth Of Properties, Risk Co. Says

    About 4.3 million homes worth $2.15 trillion are facing heightened risk of wildfire damage across the United States, while intensifying climate conditions continue to impact the affordability and availability of insurance, risk modeling company ZestyAI reported Thursday.

  • February 27, 2025

    Invitation Expects Tighter Single-Family Rental Supply In 2025

    Single-family home leasing company Invitation Homes Inc. expects housing supply to tighten in many markets this year after the firm faced pressure from new deliveries last summer, executives said during a Feb. 27 earnings call.

Expert Analysis

  • Ohio Tax Talk: The Legislative Push For Property Tax Relief

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    As Ohio legislators attempt to alleviate the increasing property tax burden, four recent bills that could significantly affect homeowners propose to eliminate replacement property tax levies, freeze property taxes for longtime homeowners, adjust homestead exemptions annually for inflation, and temporarily expand the homestead exemption, say Raghav Agnihotri and Rachael Chamberlain at Frost Brown.

  • In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist

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    Newly emboldened after the U.S. Supreme Court last month found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding is constitutional, the bureau has likely experienced a psychic boost, allowing its already robust enforcement agenda to continue expanding, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • What's New In Kentucky's Financial Services Overhaul

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    Kentucky's H.B. 726 will go into effect in July and brings with it some significant restructuring to the Kentucky Financial Services Code, including changes to mortgage loan license fees and repeals of provisions relating to installment term loans and savings associations, say attorneys at Frost Brown.

  • A Comparison Of FDIC, OCC Proposed Merger Approaches

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    Max Bonici and Connor Webb at Venable take a closer look at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's respective bank merger proposals and highlight certain common themes and important differences, in light of regulators continually rethinking their approaches to bank mergers.

  • Tax Assessment: Recapping Georgia's Legislative Session

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    Jonathan Feldman and Alla Raykin at Eversheds Sutherland examine tax-related changes from Georgia’s General Assembly — such as the governor’s successful push to accelerate income tax cuts — and suggest steps to take before certain tax incentives are challenged in the state's next legislative session.

  • 11th Circ. Ruling May Foreshadow Ch. 15 Clashes

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    The Eleventh Circuit's recent decision in In re: Talal Qais Abdulmunem Al Zawawi has introduced a split from the Second Circuit regarding whether debtors in foreign proceedings must have a domicile, calling attention to the understudied nature of Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • A Look At New IRS Rules For Domestically Controlled REITs

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    The Internal Revenue Services' finalized Treasury Regulations addressing whether real estate investment trusts qualify as domestically controlled adopt the basic structure of previous proposals, but certain new and modified rules may mitigate the regulations' impact, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking

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    With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.

  • How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

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    Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.

  • 2nd Circ. Eminent Domain Ruling Empowers Municipalities

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    The Second Circuit's recent decision in Brinkmann v. Town of Southold, finding that a pretextual taking does not violate the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, gives municipalities a powerful tool with which to block unwanted development projects, even in bad faith, say James O'Connor and Benjamin Sugarman at Phillips Lytle.

  • SEC Should Be Allowed To Equip Investors With Climate Info

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule to require more climate-related disclosures will provide investors with much-needed clarity, despite opponents' attempts to challenge the rule with misused legal arguments, say Sarah Goetz at Democracy Forward and Cynthia Hanawalt at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change.

  • 8 Fla. Statutes That Construction Cos. Should Prepare For

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    In this article, Jason Lambert at Hill Ward discusses a number of recent bills out of the Florida Legislature targeting construction companies in the Sunshine State that have been sent to the governor for signature, at least some of which will have broad impacts that affected companies should prepare for ahead of the July 1 effective date.

  • Time To Fix NYC's Broken Property Assessment System

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    A New York appellate court's decision to revive Tax Equity Now New York v. City of New York may force the city to revamp its outdated and unfair real estate tax assessment system, which could be fixed with a couple of simple changes, says Seth Feldman at Romer Debbas.