Trending topics – World rates in motion
Blackstone’s readiness to deploy more of its opportunistic capital into Europe aligns with the European Central Bank’s expectation that inflation will continue to be too high for too long in a further indication of the region’s instability. The central bank commented to this effect as it raised its main rate by 0.25 percent to 3.75 percent last Wednesday.
Meanwhile, bets are mounting on reduced turbulence stateside, where the Federal Reserve also raised interest rate guidance by 0.25 percent to a range of 5.25-5.5 percent – the highest level in 22 years. After chair Jerome Powell suggested any future hikes would be data driven, expectations are rising that no more hikes will happen this year, providing much-needed stability for the lender-borrower nexus in commercial real estate.
Bryan Kenny, principal at Los Angeles-based real estate mortgage and capital advisory firm Bandon Capital Advisors, is looking for more indicators. “It will take several more months of favorable news for commercial real estate fundamentals as well as stable or declining borrowing rates for dealflow to ramp up again,” he said.
