Categories
Reviews

Q1’2014 Review: Good Times Continuing

We got busy with new features over the past few months, as you can see from our stream of updates here and here and here, that we got really delayed on our first quarter review. Well, there were no earth-shattering news: the market’s good times continue unabated. Which is nice, isn’t it? We certainly like it. Let’s take a look at the activity in the four sectors we cover.

Categories
General Updates

NEW: Listings on OpenComps

Since we are done with the wrap up for 2013 (here and here), we want to start charting the future of OpenComps for 2014. We have a few ideas on where we want to take our service next. We really hope you’ll like them and continue to follow us on this journey. We are always open to new ideas, so don’t be shy to get in touch.

As we mentioned in our introduction of the Tools section, we have always been about more than just following completed transactions. We really want to be the technological platform for cracking the institutional real estate marketplace open, transparent and functioning fluidly. So, in addition to helping people assess a market by searching for comps, we also want to help them with finding out what’s For Sale or who is Seeking Debt or Seeking Equity. All in our trademark no-fuss OpenComps style – blazing fast search, intuitive controls, “nothing but the meat,” instant statistics and customized data sets.

Today, we would like to officially introduce our new service: Listings. OpenComps PRO subscribers can post unlimited For Sale, Seeking Debt or Seeking Equity listings on OpenComps, while registered OpenComps users – for free – can view and search them. Just hit the “+ Add New” button and select your listing type.

Categories
General

2013 Top U.S. Brokers

Continuing with the 2013 wrap up, let’s take a look at the year’s most active sell-side brokerage firms. As we pointed out in our year-end review, last year was a super active year. That means there were plenty of happy faces at the nation’s top brokerage firms.

Categories
General

2013: Year In Review (and Introducing Trends & Charts)

When we set about to write the 2013 review and compile the data – as any good writer – we reviewed our 2012 post. And we realized we were probably going to finish our 2013 piece with the same wish: “to bring our subscribers a more visual and immediate way to better understand the trends that are occurring in OpenComps’ dataset.” And we didn’t want to make the same promise twice. So we stopped writing reviews and started writing code!

Today – together with our 2013 review – we are proud to announce the new Trends & Charts section (see here for hotel, office, retail or multifamily). Currently, you can find it in our Browse By section (dropdown) together with the other data aggregation screens. And we are making it open for every one, reserving for our PRO Subscribers the advanced features such as filtering, longer time period (20 years) and advanced chart tools such as data zoom and save to PNG. This charting tool combined with its extensive search filter can produce really outstanding data insights. We hope you will consider unlocking it’s full potential with a PRO subscription.

And now onto our 2013 review. The chart that follows gives you a quick overview.

Categories
Transactions

Q3’2013 Review: The Not So Quiet Summer

While we were busy with our new re-design over the summer, the transactions market didn’t let up either during the  “quiet” months of summer which are supposed to be filled with family vacations and BBQs. With the third quarter of 2013, here is an update on our quarterly and year-to-date statistics.

The Q3 one-word summary is: HOT. As in summer hot, but really as a hot transactions market that we are seeing at the moment. Can it get even hotter? We think so. We think we are in a cyclical upturn which hopefully has more legs to run.

Categories
General

Q2’2013 Review: Continued Acceleration in Activity Across All Asset Types

With the second quarter behind us, we wanted to update you on the volume of transactions we recorded in OpenComps and the trends we are observing. We also take a look at the first half of the year as well.

The overwhelming feeling for Q2 activity is… whew! Things are cooking and stirring across all the asset types and assets are trading at a fairly brisk speed.

Categories
General

Q1’2013 Review: Hotel Sales Up Almost Double in the U.S; Better Job in Office, Retail and Residential

With the first quarter of 2013 behind us, we thought we should take a look at the volume and trend data. After observing a decrease in volume and cumulative value for hotel transactions at the end of 2012 compared to 2011, the trend in 2013 has reversed significantly and for the better. First quarter of 2013 saw 150 transaction worldwide and 113 in the U.S. vs. only 54 and 52, respectively, in the first quarter of 2012. That is a jump of 178% worldwide and 117% in the U.S. (Naturally, our tracking of non-U.S. transaction is still very sparse, so the real observable trend is in the U.S.).

We also decided to provide you with a summary of the distributions by property type and location type for the first quarter. Interestingly, investors are almost equally focused between Urban and Suburban properties with the focus on Upscale and Upper Upscale properties. (We recently updated our property types classifications to align ourselves with the latest STR classifications; clean up, though, is still in process).

Categories
General

2012: Top Brokers

Continuing with the 2012 review, here is a snapshot of the 2012 Top 5 Brokerage Firms rankings as they stand on March 6, 2013. The data is dynamic and changes when new transactions are introduced in the dataset. For the full and most up-to-date 2012 list, you can go to the hotel, office, retail and residential rankings. Don’t forget the “Top Broker” dropdown menu to see who is the most active year-to-date (2013) or create your own custom period (the default gives you the all-time ranking).

The table reflects United States only transactions as outside of the U.S., regrettably, our database does not have many datapoints. We welcome your input. The same is true for our Office, Retail and Residential data, even in the U.S. As a broker, you’ve worked hard to put the transaction(s) together. Shouldn’t you get credit for it? Register for OpenComps for free and update the transactions you’ve worked on or give us your unrecorded transactions. If you prefer to just email us, you can do so at tips@opencomps.com. Send us your one transaction or the in-house spreadsheet if you are that productive. You deserve the credit!

Finally, the table represents top sell-side brokers. In OpenComps we also track buy-side brokers. But let’s be frank, sell-side is where the action is.

2012 Top 5 Brokers

 

Categories
General

2012: Year in Review

Here at OpenComps we hope that everyone had good holidays. Before we plunge into a hopefully busy 2013, we wanted to take a general look at what happened in OpenComps’ dataset in 2012 as of today January 2, 2013: