🏠 House passes landmark housing bill 396-13
🎓 Ares and Scion bet $910M on student housing
🏗️ Chicago's office pipeline hits absolute zero
🔧 Upcoming Workshops:  Building & Funding Student Housing

Data Viz of the Week: Single Family Construction Sluggish

Single-family construction continues to grind sideways. Permits and starts have been stuck in a sluggish range since early 2024, and April's pullback is more continuation than collapse as single-family permits hit their lowest point since last summer.

The bigger story is completions finally rolling over. After a year of builders finishing out their backlog at a steady 1 million per year (seasonally adjusted annual rate), the pipeline is catching down to the muted permit activity that preceded it. The April headline strength was almost entirely multifamily; on the single-family side, builders remain cautious and the supply tap stays half-closed.

Upcoming Thesis Driven Workshops

• 📣 Last Call - May 27: 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 - $299

• 📣 Last Call - May 28: AI in Real Estate (💻 Online): ​​​​​A three-hour interactive workshop for owners, operators, and developers exploring how to use AI in the real estate sector. - $499

• June 3: AI in AEC (💻 Online): ​​​​​A one-day interactive workshop for owners, operators, developers, architects, and builders exploring how AI is reshaping the AEC stack—from design to delivery. - $299

• June 4: Selling into the Real Estate Industry (💻 Online): ​​​​​A one-day interactive workshop for owners, operators, developers, architects, and builders exploring how AI is reshaping the AEC stack—from design to delivery. - $499

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. (CNN) House Passes Housing Affordability Bill That Softens Institutional Investor Ban The House passed the amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on Wednesday by an overwhelming 396–13 vote, sending it back to the Senate for final approval. The bill strips the Senate's controversial forced-sale provision that would have required BTR operators to divest properties after seven years — replacing it with a tenant hotline for renters in institutional-investor-owned homes. Broader limits on institutional buyers of existing single-family stock remain intact. Eleven national housing organizations, including NAHB and MBA, praised the bill as encompassing "the most significant housing proposals in a generation." The bill now needs Senate concurrence on the House amendments — but with bipartisan support this lopsided, the path to the president's desk looks clear.

2. (Bloomberg) Ares, Scion Group Buy $910 Million U.S. Student-Housing Portfolio in First Deal Ares Management and The Scion Group launched their newly formed JV with a bang — acquiring a 7,578-bed, 12-property student housing portfolio from Harrison Street for roughly $910M, the largest student housing transaction of the year. The properties sit near marquee universities including Notre Dame, Ohio State, and James Madison, with the JV focused on off-campus assets in markets with strong enrollment and limited new supply. Student housing has emerged as one of the most resilient CRE sub-sectors post-pandemic, and the deal signals that institutional capital is repricing the asset class upward. Expect more platform-level M&A in the space as the enrollment cycle favors large public universities.

3. (Bisnow) Chicago's Downtown Office Pipeline at Zero for the First Time Since 2012 Chicago's downtown office construction pipeline is officially empty for the first time in over a decade, according to Newmark data — cleared out after Fulton St. Cos. delivered its $350M building at 919 W. Fulton earlier this year. Panelists at Bisnow's Chicago office summit predicted no new development until 2030 or 2031 at the earliest, citing expensive debt, escalating construction costs, and an equity premium that makes new-build economics impossible. The silver lining for existing landlords: zero new supply means the flight-to-quality story in Chicago may eventually tighten even premium inventory, particularly in Fulton Market and the West Loop. But for a city that once defined American office development, it's a sobering milestone.

Developer of the Week: Extell

Extell Development paid $500 million for a Park Avenue development site, expanding a major Midtown Manhattan assemblage near JPMorgan Chase's new headquarters. This is one of the largest single land acquisitions in recent New York City history, signaling bold confidence in ultra-prime Manhattan development at a moment when many developers are pulling back on new builds due to equity constraints. 

It underscores a bifurcation in the market: institutional-scale players doubling down on trophy locations while mid-market developers struggle to pencil deals.

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

Investor of the Week: Amzak

Amzak Capital Management is a Boca Raton-based single-family office and private investment firm of the Kazma family. Originally from Canada, Gerry Kazma and his son Mike built and operated cable systems across the Americas before developing Amnet, Central America's largest cable/triple play operator, which they sold to Millicom International in 2008. What began as a family investment vehicle has evolved into an institutional-grade platform with four core strategies: real estate, industrials, fixed income, and healthcare — all deployed with principal capital, no outside LPs, and an active operator mentality.

Within real estate, Amzak focuses on multifamily, single-family, and hospitality — providing common equity, preferred equity, and bridge loans in the $5M–$20M range per transaction, which gives them unusual flexibility across the capital stack. On the multifamily side, the firm is active in value-add, ground-up development, and opportunistic plays with a clear Florida and Southeast concentration. Recent deals include a $52.5M construction loan (alongside North River Partners) for a 312-unit complex in Fort Pierce, a $68.5M construction loan for the 215-unit Flats Flagler Gateway in Fort Lauderdale, and a $20.5M construction loan for a multifamily project in South Florida. On the hospitality side, Amzak co-owns Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel, FL with Mast Capital, completing a $92M renovation of the 480-acre property in 2025 — a deal led by Michael Kazma. The firm does selective LP investments and is open to co-investment with like-minded partners, making them a natural fit for value-add multifamily or hospitality deals in Florida and the broader Sun Belt with a credible operator behind them.

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

—Brad and Paul