🎸 Live Nation’s big bet: Amplifying Atlanta’s downtown revival with a major venue
📉 Bank OZK shifts gears as CRE vacancies challenge its skyscraper legacy
🇳🇴 Norway writes $800M check to fund Blackstone’s logistics push in US & CA
📚 Learn the playbook to sell technologies & services to real estate owners

Data Viz of the Week: Foreclosures In Context

The 40% jump in housing foreclosures in Q1 2025 made headlines, but we'd encourage our readers to look at foreclosures within the broader context. Overall, the rate of foreclosures is still below pre-pandemic levels, a third of 2024 levels, and incomparable to anything witnessed in the GFC.

But it's still a trend worth watching, particularly if the US enters a recession this summer.

Upcoming Thesis Driven Courses & Classes

📣 Last call: Today, we’re launching one of Thesis Driven’s most popular courses for real estate professionals, Selling into Real Estate online--a five-week online course for founders, employees, and providers who sell products and services into the real estate industry.

What You’ll Learn:

• Identifying Your Audience by Companies & Roles: What roles do property managers, asset managers, leasing agents, and principals play in the industry and the procurement process? How do you identify your top target customers, including an analysis of the different types of real estate firms, investment strategies, asset classes, and more?

• Making the Financial Case for Your Offering: How are key players in real estate measured, incentivized and rewarded, and how does that impact how they buy?

• Crafting Your Messaging: What sales messaging will resonate with customers, and how do vendors craft a sales pitch highlighting that message?

• Managing Channels and Funnels: What are the key insights and strategies on nurturing leads through the sales funnel from awareness to engagement to sale?

• Inbound & Outbound Funnels: How do vendors leverage outbound channels, earned and owned media to generate warm inbound leads? What is the role of conferences, channel partnerships and more?

• Nurturing, Negotiating & Closing Deals: Real estate owners and asset managers are extraordinarily busy. How do you rise above the noise and close the deal?

5 more days to register - Sign up here

All Upcoming Courses

• June 2: Introduction to Development (💻 Online): A first-person POV simulation for aspiring developers to learn to source, underwrite and finance a local real estate project - Sign up

• June 9: Fundamentals of Capital Raising (💻 Online): Insider’s guide to raising capital for real estate projects & platforms–from individuals, family offices and institutional investors - Sign up

• June 16 & 17: Fundamentals of Capital Raising (🗽Live in NYC): Insider’s guide to raising capital for real estate projects & platforms–from individuals, family offices and institutional investors - Sign up

Three Articles We Loved from Last Week

It’s not easy keeping up with everything. Here are three articles (+1 bonus) we loved from the past week that you may have missed:

1. (WSJ) Live Nation Buys Into $5 Billion Master Plan to Revive Atlanta’s Downtown

   Live Nation is committing to a 5,300-seat concert venue within Atlanta’s $5 billion Centennial Yards redevelopment. The project aims to revitalize downtown Atlanta with housing, retail, and entertainment spaces, transforming a former rail yard into a vibrant mixed-use district.

2. (CRE Daily) Logistics Fund Gets $800M Boost As Norway Bets On Blackstone

   Norway commits $800 million to Blackstone’s logistics fund, focusing on U.S. and Canadian warehouses. The investment underscores growing interest in logistics real estate amid global trade shifts and supply chain reconfigurations.

3. (WSJ) America’s Commercial Real-Estate Pain Tests Bank That Built Its Fortunes on Skyscrapers

   Bank OZK, known for financing high-profile skyscrapers, is reevaluating its heavy reliance on commercial real estate. With over a third of its $19 billion in real estate loans facing high vacancy rates, the bank is capping new loan amounts and syndicating larger deals to mitigate risks.

Developer of the Week: Creation Equity

Phoenix-based industrial developer Creation Equity continues on its roll, this time in a JV with a Crow Holdings entity to build a 451,000 square foot industrial facility in Forth Worth.

Creation has more than $3.5 billion in projects under development across the US, including a number in the DFW metroplex.

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

Know about a developer doing something cool that we should feature? Reach out to [email protected] with the tip!

—Brad and Paul