Posted on July 2, 2018

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. that states may collect sales taxes from online retailers, even if those sellers do not have a physical location in the state. That reverses a decision the Court had made in 1992 in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota.

NAIOP supports the collection of existing sales and use taxes from online retailers when these taxes are already owed to state and local governments, including backing legislative efforts in Congress that would specifically empower states to do so. Not collecting these taxes puts brick-and-mortar retailers at a disadvantage to out-of-state vendors whose purchasers can avoid taxes, as the Court pointed out in its decision.

“Each year the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the decision. “These critiques underscore that the physical presence rule, both as first formulated and as applied today, is an incorrect interpretation of the Commerce Clause.”

Posted on June 20, 2018

NAIOP Research Foundation Visionaries and other members of the Foundation’s Industry Trends Task Force had the opportunity to participate in a discussion with IBM Vice President Frank Cuevas, who oversees the company’s global real estate strategy and operations, at the 2018 National Forums Symposium in New York City. Cuevas leads IBM’s global real estate portfolio, which encompasses nearly 80 million square feet worldwide, including data centers, research labs and office space, housing some 380,000 employees.

Click here to read more.

Posted on June 11, 2018

According to a new Cushman and Wakefield report, Space Matters: Key Office Trends and Metrics, two important trends in office space include technology amenities and parking. Common amenities – such as fitness centers and cost-effective food options – remain very important but there is ample opportunity for growth in how technology-related amenities are leveraged by occupiers and landlords. Despite advances in technology, researchers found many office building owners continue to struggle with some of the most basic offerings such as seamless, high-speed internet and cellular service.

In many urban submarkets, parking supply is a challenge and high prices have been forcing innovative solutions. According to the report, the predominant reason people utilize ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft is to avoid parking. In some cases, this has led owners to provide valet or shuttle services to connect offices with off-site parking, including garages in different parts of a city.

Posted on May 21, 2018

By: Rachel Karitis

If you live in an urban area like Washington, D.C., or San Francisco, then you’ve probably seen the Skittles rainbow-colored bikes taking over the sidewalks. What you might not know is the specifics of how they work, and how this service could revolutionize the office commute.

Bike sharing as we have come to know it has tended to be city-funded (sometimes in conjunction with private companies) and presented in the form of expensive-to-install docks of bikes. Recently, there has been a veritable boom of private startups looking to make bike sharing profitable. These bikes do not need to be returned to stations, and instead can be picked up and left anywhere within city limits.

Click here to read more.

Posted on April 18, 2018

According to Axios, U.S. companies are “largely unprepared” for the new European Union (EU) data privacy laws that will take effect this May. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is intended to “give users more control of how their personal data are used and streamline data processes across the EU.” Companies that fail to achieve GDPR standards will face penalties and fines. Europe has taken a stricter stance than the U.S. on protecting consumer privacy and the new regulation will serve as a “litmus test for regulating the data economy.” The effects will be far-reaching for tech companies and e-commerce merchants, but will also affect any company that collects data on customers, including real estate brokers, managers and owners. Any real estate companies dealing with individuals in Europe will have to remain compliant. GDPR will grant the following rights to individuals:

• The right to be informed that data is being collected.
• The right to access the data.
• The right to change, correct or update the data.
• The right to erase data.
• The right to restrict processing.
• The right to data portability.
• The right to object.
• Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

According to Inman news, these regulations cover CRE companies that store personally identifying information on potential customers and existing tenants. Property managers, many of whom collect and process data regarding energy efficiency, must gain consent from tenants.

Posted on April 6, 2018

By: Marie Ruff

In 1936, The New York Times claimed, “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” In 1943, the chairman of IBM said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Advances and tools that once seemed impossible are now commonplace – from flying in a commercial airplane to holding a device as powerful as a computer in the palm of your hand.

At CRE.Insights: The Last Mile, speaker David Schwebel, senior director of business development with Swisslog Technology, began his session on the automated age of industrial with these premises:

1. Change is constant.
2. Things don’t always go as you expect them.
3. You will be wrong more than you are right.
4. When you become right, it changes the world.

Click here to read the full article.

Posted on March 23, 2018

By Marie Ruff

Every click of an e-commerce order kicks off a series of actions that lead to the delivery of your package from a warehouse to your house – and the final stretch of that process is the most expensive part. “People expect to order anything, anytime, and have it delivered anywhere they want it. It’s a challenge for our infrastructure,” said Gregory Healy, Colliers International executive managing director, supply chain and logistics, during his keynote address at NAIOP’s CRE.insights: The Last Mile conference this week.

Click here to read more.

Posted on February 28, 2018

A recent Memoori report, Occupancy Analytics & In-Building Location Based Services 2017 to 2022, finds “value-added services such as space utilization, indoor positioning, connected lighting and asset tracking are helping to drive the adoption of As-a-Service business models.”

Smart Building As-a-Service refers to third-party companies working with building owners to deploy technology to maximize efficiency and use data-driven analytics to understand better how people operate within the building. For example, if building owners and managers subscribed to a sensing-as-a-service firm, the firm would be responsible for not only installing the equipment but also managing, analyzing and reporting the data the sensors collect.

Posted on December 18, 2017

In the wake of last week’s cybercrime attack, Mecklenburg County is continuing to make progress on restoring permitting systems to full functionality. LUESA is running tests on the POSSE system today, and pending those results, is hoping to have it back up and running by tomorrow or Thursday.

LUESA director Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi told REBIC today he is confident that no plans or review comments were lost during the hack, so the department should be able to pick up where they left off once everything is back online.

Code Enforcement has been averaging about 1,000 inspections a week since the system collapsed, so they don’t expect there will be much (if any) of a backup once the system returns to normal. In addition, the County says they’ve had a number of on-schedule reviews completed this week using the paper process, and once the system is back up, they’ll contact all customers in the queue to let them know how they’ll be proceeding with their scheduled reviews. Again, they seem to expect a minimal disruption.

Click here to read more.

Posted on December 1, 2017

Boxed Wholesale believes self-driving carts can be used to navigate through warehouses and pick products, according to an article in DigitalCommerce360.com. Boxed, a web-only merchant that sells primarily household goods, initially plans to use fully automated carts to shuttle goods between picking and packing human warehouse workers. “Long term, we’re aiming to expand the functionality of the vehicles to complete other warehouse tasks that can be made more efficient,” says Will Fong, the retailer’s chief technology officer. “For example, rather than sending a human to restock a picking zone with paper towels, the vehicle could soon be able to recognize the need to replenish the product and complete the task, all without humans needing to get involved.” A Boxed in-house team of two engineers developed the autonomous cart in 90 days. Boxed first added the carts to its warehouse in Union, New Jersey, and plans to add them to fulfillment centers in Dallas, Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Posted on November 20, 2017

Tapping into financial and property data can allow commercial real estate companies to save both time and money; using real-time performance analytics, for example, can help optimize operating expenses. As the volume of data across the globe increases at a staggering rate, meanwhile, the data center industry faces critical questions about cybersecurity and data management.

• Next Wave of CRE Tech: Harnessing Data to Unlock Value 
  Commercial real estate is coming to terms with the critical need for data-driven organizations, teams and results, reports Waypoint. The current tech landscape enables financial data to be aggregated into a single, company-wide system of record rather than compiling disparate data from separate, siloed systems. How organizations leverage and analyze the data is what will ultimately provide the competitive edge they need to rise above the rest.
• Four Ways the Cloud is Forever Changing Data Center Real Estate
  The future of data center real estate is looking more global and automated, according to JLL research, helping the data center industry become more efficient and keep up with the surging amount of data being generated by corporations, entertainment companies, and personal devices. Combined with the growth of cloud computing, these trends mean that the industry is facing important questions about cybersecurity, data sovereignty, and digital content consumption.

Posted on November 15, 2017

The U.S. commercial real estate industry ecosystem is changing at a rapid rate due to new forms of technology (e.g., artificial intelligence, smart cities, mobility improvements, sensors) and demographic changes in the workforce, according to Deloitte’s Commercial Real Estate Outlook 2018. The report urges the real estate industry to embrace these changes even though they might represent uncertainty.

The key, according to the report, is to close the gap between technological changes and business productivity over the next 12-18 months by prioritizing the following themes:

• Accelerate business: Unlock the value for REITs by examining their corporate governance and communication strategies, optimizing property portfolios and reassessing public status.
• Avail alternative capital options: Traditional commercial real estate companies can engage with fintech startups for sharable solutions, diversified funding sources and investment purposes.
• Augment productivity: Companies should embrace robotics and cognitive automation to improve productivity in data collection, management and analysis.
• Advance talent and culture: The commercial real estate industry is facing a talent shortage and must be agile, innovative and collaborative to attract new employees.

Posted on November 14, 2017

Written by Champaign Williams

Technology is transforming the investment sales process. 

Ten-X Commercial Division Managing Director Yan Khamish said though technology can never replace brokers in the investment sales process, it can cast a wider net and help investment brokers, buyers and sellers close more deals faster. 

Posted on October 6, 2017

According to a recent TechCrunch article, “VC Doors are Wide Open for Real Estate Startups,” seed and early-stage investment in real estate technology have increased by $100 million over the past 12 months. Cultural and demographic shifts along with rising property and rental prices account for the rising interest in startups.

“Real estate and its adjacent industries are broadly behind in technology adoption, so many investors look at the space as low-hanging fruit,” says Constance Freedman, managing partner at real estate-focused venture capitalist (VC) firm Moderne Ventures.

The article identifies several companies that are experiencing early-stage funding:

Posted on October 4, 2017

By: Todd Burns

Between rising costs, dwindling talent pools and looming uncertainty, today’s construction leaders are grappling with some seriously disruptive forces. But a closer look at each of these “disruptions” reveals some serious opportunities, too, as the sector begins to ramp up its technology strategy.

Though still in the early stages of change, the sector’s movement toward tech innovation represents a meaningful cultural shift, considering that it’s traditionally been slower to embrace technology than other industries.

Posted on September 11, 2017

A group calling itself the Coalition for Future Mobility – representing automakers, suppliers, smart transportation leaders and people with disabilities – is asking Congress to tell the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it’s time to change auto safety standards so they reflect the coming of self-driving cars. The measure has passed a House of Representatives committee.

“Unfortunately, the rulemaking process is not a short one, not a cheap one and is nothing short of labor intensive,” Elliot Katz, a partner at the law firm McGuireWoods, tells Bloomberg. “The basic problem here is one we’ve seen in a lot of industries: the technology moves a lot quicker than the regulation.” The coalition wants Congress to act as soon as possible.

Bloomberg reports that more than 30 current regulations seem to require a human driver be at the wheel. Such regulations could pose a problem for autonomous vehicles, which are being developed by both tech companies such as Google and carmakers such as Volvo and Ford.

Posted on August 24, 2017

Written by Brielle Scott

You’ve heard of sailing a ship with a “skeleton crew,” but what about no crew at all?

The ghost ships from tall tales of pirates and buried treasure are no longer the stuff of fiction: A Norwegian company is developing a fully autonomous container ship that will eventually troll the high seas with no crew aboard.

Posted on August 21, 2017

By: Hazel Garcia

STEM careers, also known as careers involving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, are some of the best paying jobs available. Requiring only a Bachelor’s degree for most for most of them, they are one of the better education bargains as well. The high pay that comes with these jobs combined with the smaller amount of education required helps minimize student loan debt as well, which leads to a better quality of life.

In the past couple of decades, more women are entering STEM programs to get the education required for these high-paying positions. While the number of women entering STEM programs has grown considerably, it’s still a male-dominated industry. Depending on which state you live in, there might as many as 4.5 times more men working in STEM than women.

Posted on July 20, 2017

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports more than 10 percent of the country’s electricity was generated by wind or solar in March, the most recent month for which information is available. It’s the first time these renewable energy sources have provided that much power.

The administration notes that wind and solar combined to provide 7 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2016. It predicts that, “based on seasonal patterns in recent years, electricity generation from wind and solar will probably exceed 10 percent of total U.S. generation again in April 2017, then fall to less than 10 percent in the summer months.” Wind and solar tend to produce more electricity in the spring and fall than in the summer or winter.

The organization adds that, “about half of all utility-scale solar power plants in the United States use some form of sun-tracking technology to improve their seasonal output.”

Posted on July 17, 2017

During the most recent Industry Trends Task Force meeting, held during the National Forums Symposium in April, NAIOP Foundation Governors and invited guests participated in a session focusing on technological innovations impacting the CRE industry.

Topics discussed include:

• Legal documents can be produced and executed more easily today than they could years ago – one simple example of how technology has facilitated leasing and sales transactions.
• There are a tremendous number of regulatory barriers that prevent zoning technology from advancing. Parking ratios required by zoning laws are too high in some instances and too low in others. Sensors enable the collection of reliable data about when and where cars are parked but correcting the imbalance will require a change in local zoning, a feat that historically has been difficult to achieve.
• Drones have become more sophisticated and can be used for surveying, inspection of roofs, and many other aspects of either pre- or post-construction. Drones could begin to replace people, including site crews and inspectors.
• With aerial photography and Google, it’s now possible to look at a site and conduct market analytics, enabling a retailer, for example, to select an optimal location.
• The brokerage industry may become like the travel industry; in the future, real estate brokers (both commercial and residential) may provide guidance rather than carry out transactions. Building management software now tracks work orders. A tenant can submit a problem and the building engineer can change a setting from an iPad without having to travel to the site.
• A key problem is the pace at which change is occurring today. There is an inherent disconnect between technology that changes rapidly and physical, fixed, tangible real estate products that take a long time to build and modify. To address this, the industry must begin to think about how to build flexibility into real estate assets.

The session was moderated by NAIOP Distinguished Fellows Mark Stapp, Executive Director, Master of Real Estate Development, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University; and Chris Redfearn, Director, Dollinger Masters of Real Estate Development program, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California.