🏠 JPMorgan Goes Big on Housing — $750B Big
📈 DST Market on Pace for Record $10B Year
🏢 REIT M&A Wave Hits $42.7B in a Single Quarter
Upcoming Workshops: 👾 Building the Zero-Employee Property Manager 

Data Viz of the Week: Manufacturing Construction Slows

Factory construction is down 32% from its 2024 peak as CHIPS Act financing burns off and IRA projects get canceled. However, spending remains well above pre-pandemic levels, particularly among computer hardware and electronics manufacturers.

This does not include data center investment, which continues its surge unabated by political pushback.

Upcoming Thesis Driven Workshops

• Wednesday, August 12: Building the Zero-Employee Property Manager (💻 Online): A live interactive workshop for owners, operators, and asset managers exploring how close we really are to running multifamily properties with little, or no, full-time staff. - $299

• Thursday, August 13: AI for Acquisitions (💻 Online): A hands-on, two-hour workshop on using AI to source, screen, and underwrite deals, including building a working acquisition agent with Claude, so a lean team can perform like one three times its size. - $299

• Wednesday, August 19: AI in Capital Raising (💻 Online): A one-day interactive workshop designed for sponsors, bankers, capital advisors, and investor relations professionals who want to understand how artificial intelligence is reshaping the mechanics of capital raising, and learn to operate with the speed, precision, and scale that modern fundraising demands. - $299

• Thursday, August 20: Structuring an OpCo/PropCo Business (💻 Online): A one-day interactive workshop designed for real estate operators, entrepreneurs, and investors looking to structure or invest in OpCo/PropCo platforms. - $299

Three Articles We Loved from Last Week

It’s not easy keeping up with everything. Here are three articles we loved from the past week that you may have missed:

1. (CBS News) JPMorgan Chase to Invest $750 Billion in Increasing U.S. Housing Supply and Homeownership JPMorgan Chase announced plans to deploy more than $750 billion through 2035 to increase housing supply and support homeownership, a nearly 40% increase over what the bank deployed in the prior decade. The initiative targets funding 1 million affordable housing units and guiding 500,000 customers through the homebuying process, including 200,000 first-time buyers. To hit those numbers, JPM plans to grow mortgage lending volume by over 40% and hire 850 additional home lending advisors, while also pledging nearly $80 billion in small-business lending and doubling its Community Center branch network in LMI neighborhoods.

2. (Bisnow) Delaware Statutory Trust Fundraising Jumps 31%, Putting 2026 On Track for a Record $10B DST equity fundraising hit $985 million in July alone, a single-month record and a 35% jump from June's $731 million. Through the first seven months, DST sponsors have raised roughly $5.5 billion, a 31% increase year-over-year that puts the market on pace to surpass 2022's peak of $9.4 billion. Average time on market for active programs has dropped 45% year-over-year — from 407 days to just 225 — signaling that 1031 exchange capital is flowing faster than sponsors can manufacture product.

3. (Nareit) REITs Raised $20 Billion in Capital Offerings in Q2 2026 Public REITs raised $20 billion in the second quarter through secondary debt, equity, and IPOs, with non-ATM equity issuance totaling $8.9 billion — including $2.5 billion from two IPOs. Meanwhile, five M&A deals totaling $42.7 billion were announced in the quarter, with $36.9 billion (86%) representing public-REIT-to-public-REIT transactions. Debt's share of total capital raised fell to 48% from 73% in 2025, a notable shift as REITs increasingly tap equity markets to fund growth.

Developer of the Week: Stotan Industrial

Stotan Industrial, a developer new to the Houston market, has acquired roughly 20 acres near Bush Intercontinental Airport to construct a $17.5 million cross-dock distribution facility. The project will replace an existing industrial coworking operation on the Rankin Road site, signaling a shift toward more purpose-built last-mile logistics infrastructure in the submarket.

The move marks Stotan's entry into one of the country's most active industrial corridors, and the cross-dock format — optimized for rapid transfer of goods between inbound and outbound trucks — reflects a broader trend of developers prioritizing operational efficiency over raw square footage. The Bush Intercontinental proximity makes the site particularly attractive for time-sensitive freight and e-commerce fulfillment, and the acquisition underscores how non-local developers are increasingly targeting Houston's industrial submarkets.

You can read more about Stotan on the Thesis Driven GP database here.

Investor of the Week: Twin Focus

TwinFocus Capital Partners is a Boston-based boutique multi-family office founded in 2006 by twin brothers Paul and Wesley Karger, serving 45+ ultra-high-net-worth client families — each with balance sheets north of $100 million — with more than $11 billion in assets under advisement. The firm formalized a standalone real estate practice in 2019 when it brought on William Ward, formerly of Lazard's real estate principal investing group and Kimberlite Advisors, as Partner and Managing Director of Real Estate, reporting to the Karger founders and Managing Partner John Pantekidis. Rather than raising a blind-pool fund, TwinFocus co-invests firm and client capital side-by-side into deals Ward sources and underwrites, with clients committing on a deal-by-deal basis — a structure that gives operating partners a single decision-maker who can move with conviction once diligence clears.

The firm's sweet spot is niche, dislocated, or tax-advantaged real estate, with Opportunity Zone investing a stated priority since Ward joined; confirmed plays include multifamily development projects in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood — where OZ-eligible sites replaced blighted properties with quality housing along the Delaware River — a luxury apartment community in Vancouver, WA, and a ground-up, 155-unit residential building in Durham, NC. TwinFocus is best approached not as a fund LP but as a co-investment partner: a family office that writes principal checks into deals it has already stress-tested, with a clear preference for operators who can offer differentiated access to a clean structure with a tax angle.

Get more details on Twin Focus including team contacts, deal activity, and investment preferences, inside the CapitalStack database.

—Brad and Paul