SEATTLE—Nearly all housing experts surveyed last month in Zillow's quarterly survey agreed short-term home rentals like those offered on Airbnb and HomeAway do not have a meaningful and large impact on housing affordability, according to the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey. Respondents to the quarterly survey, sponsored by Zillow and conducted by Pulsenomics LLC, were asked about the impact of short-term home rentals on supply and housing affordability. Half of the experts surveyed said the impact is meaningful, but small. Just over 40% said the impact is not meaningful, and about 5% said short-term home rentals have a large impact on housing affordability. Just 3.8% responded as unsure.

NEWS & NOTABLES

PORTLAND—Ankrom Moisan Architects, an award-winning firm specializing in integrated architectural, interior design, urban design and branding services, has moved into its new founding office at 38 Davis in Portland's Old Town Chinatown District. Encompassing 58,000 square feet and three floors of the six-story 38 Davis, AMA is the largest tenant of the district's first ground up new construction project in a decade.

SAN FRANCISCO—Elizabeth Champagne MAI, FRICS has been named Area Leader for Cushman & Wakefield's Northern California / Pacific Northwest region. Effective December 12th, Champagne now leads a region poised for significant growth opportunities. In this capacity she will help nurture existing client relationships, procure new clients and develop services through targeted business expansion efforts. With over 30 years of valuation experience, Champagne most recently worked for CBRE, where she was the Senior Managing Director of the Northern California Valuation group, responsible for a broad range of high-level valuation services throughout the United States. Her prolific career includes nearly 20 years of management experience at the helm of large and successful commercial appraisal offices. She has a well-rounded real estate background, including serving as an Assessor for the City of Newton, MA, as a loan servicer/underwriter and appraiser for HUD, FmHA and the Department of Interior USFWS.

SAN FRANCISCO—Newmark marked its 25th anniversary of operations with a companywide celebration and retreat hosted at the iconic Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, including a unique dinner hosted at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where the firm acknowledged the many reasons for the gathering. Newmark's principals and associates had plenty to celebrate, starting with having just closed on long-term financing for the Four Diamond, AAA-rated Monterey Plaza totaling $61 million. Newmark principals were proud to acknowledge this recent success, while recognizing that since its founding on Nov. 1, 1991, the firm has placed more than $30 billion of commercial mortgages across 3,500 unique transactions covering the spectrum of commercial real estate asset classes including office, industrial, retail, multifamily, mixed use, hospitality, self storage and mobile home parks.

DEAL TRACKER

PORTLAND—Key Development's 21-story apartment building at the Burnside Bridgehead, called Yard, has been acquired by a Thailand-based residential developer. Financial details weren't disclosed, but reports show the price around $126.8 million. Elizabeth Davis, a director at Institutional Property Advisors represented Yard's owners in the deal and procured the buyer. Davis says that “Everything about this development has been unique, from the land assembly, to selling a large asset pre-stabilization, to attracting a new-to-market international buyer.”

RENTON, WA—Sequoia Equities Inc. has acquired The Carriages at Fairwood Downs, a 400-unit, apartment building in Renton, WA. This marks the final piece of over $300 million in transactions beginning with the disposition of 556-units in Grand Terrace, CA in late-October and the purchases of Eddyline in Tualatin, OR and The Carriages via deferred tax exchange. This is ninth acquisition for the firm in the Pacific Northwest and second in the Seattle-metro market since 2015. The property was developed in 1986 and is comprised of 436,583 rentable square feet in 36, two and three-story residential buildings.

BUILDING BLOCKS

SEATTLE—LMN Architects announces the unveiling of their design for the new Computer Science and Engineering Building, Phase 2 for the University of Washington. The new 138,000-square-foot facility will help meet the soaring demand for education in computer science, which has recently surpassed business as the most popular major at the University of Washington. CSE2 will complement the existing 165,000-square-foot Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, also designed by LMN, which was completed in 2003.

SEATTLE—Three buildings in Pioneer Square will be significantly renovated to accommodate a new retail, office and residential destination that reinvigorates the entire block. The pedestrian-friendly development within Pioneer Square will be a central part of the reawakening of this vibrant Seattle neighborhood while augmenting its historic character. This transformative project is being developed by Urban Villages Inc., together with Manchester Capital Management.

This week in the North West region, Ankrom Moisan Architects chooses Portland's Old Town Chinatown District as its new offices, and a Thailand-based residential developer makes a big purchase in the city. Check out all the news you might have missed below in Portland and other regions across the North West.—Natalie Dolce

BY THE NUMBERS

SEATTLE—Even as home values approach the highest levels reached during the housing bubble, 11% of homeowners with a mortgage are underwater, according to the third quarter Zillow Negative Equity Report. The share of homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth has dropped by nearly two-thirds since the housing bubble burst four years ago. Nationally 5.3 million homeowners were in negative equity in the third quarter, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. At the peak in Q1 2012, 15.7 million homeowners were underwater on their mortgages. The numbers are another sign that the housing market has nearly regained the value lost during the recession, and is only 2.7% below the peak reached at the height of the bubble. Not all regions have experienced the same recovery, though, and some markets are still well below those bubble highs.

Underwater homeowners can't refinance to take advantage of still-low mortgage rates and they can't sell their homes except in short sales, which keeps these homes off the market, contributing to low inventory.

SEATTLE—Nearly all housing experts surveyed last month in Zillow's quarterly survey agreed short-term home rentals like those offered on Airbnb and HomeAway do not have a meaningful and large impact on housing affordability, according to the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey. Respondents to the quarterly survey, sponsored by Zillow and conducted by Pulsenomics LLC, were asked about the impact of short-term home rentals on supply and housing affordability. Half of the experts surveyed said the impact is meaningful, but small. Just over 40% said the impact is not meaningful, and about 5% said short-term home rentals have a large impact on housing affordability. Just 3.8% responded as unsure.

NEWS & NOTABLES

PORTLAND—Ankrom Moisan Architects, an award-winning firm specializing in integrated architectural, interior design, urban design and branding services, has moved into its new founding office at 38 Davis in Portland's Old Town Chinatown District. Encompassing 58,000 square feet and three floors of the six-story 38 Davis, AMA is the largest tenant of the district's first ground up new construction project in a decade.

SAN FRANCISCO—Elizabeth Champagne MAI, FRICS has been named Area Leader for Cushman & Wakefield's Northern California / Pacific Northwest region. Effective December 12th, Champagne now leads a region poised for significant growth opportunities. In this capacity she will help nurture existing client relationships, procure new clients and develop services through targeted business expansion efforts. With over 30 years of valuation experience, Champagne most recently worked for CBRE, where she was the Senior Managing Director of the Northern California Valuation group, responsible for a broad range of high-level valuation services throughout the United States. Her prolific career includes nearly 20 years of management experience at the helm of large and successful commercial appraisal offices. She has a well-rounded real estate background, including serving as an Assessor for the City of Newton, MA, as a loan servicer/underwriter and appraiser for HUD, FmHA and the Department of Interior USFWS.

SAN FRANCISCO—Newmark marked its 25th anniversary of operations with a companywide celebration and retreat hosted at the iconic Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, including a unique dinner hosted at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where the firm acknowledged the many reasons for the gathering. Newmark's principals and associates had plenty to celebrate, starting with having just closed on long-term financing for the Four Diamond, AAA-rated Monterey Plaza totaling $61 million. Newmark principals were proud to acknowledge this recent success, while recognizing that since its founding on Nov. 1, 1991, the firm has placed more than $30 billion of commercial mortgages across 3,500 unique transactions covering the spectrum of commercial real estate asset classes including office, industrial, retail, multifamily, mixed use, hospitality, self storage and mobile home parks.

DEAL TRACKER

PORTLAND—Key Development's 21-story apartment building at the Burnside Bridgehead, called Yard, has been acquired by a Thailand-based residential developer. Financial details weren't disclosed, but reports show the price around $126.8 million. Elizabeth Davis, a director at Institutional Property Advisors represented Yard's owners in the deal and procured the buyer. Davis says that “Everything about this development has been unique, from the land assembly, to selling a large asset pre-stabilization, to attracting a new-to-market international buyer.”

RENTON, WA—Sequoia Equities Inc. has acquired The Carriages at Fairwood Downs, a 400-unit, apartment building in Renton, WA. This marks the final piece of over $300 million in transactions beginning with the disposition of 556-units in Grand Terrace, CA in late-October and the purchases of Eddyline in Tualatin, OR and The Carriages via deferred tax exchange. This is ninth acquisition for the firm in the Pacific Northwest and second in the Seattle-metro market since 2015. The property was developed in 1986 and is comprised of 436,583 rentable square feet in 36, two and three-story residential buildings.

BUILDING BLOCKS

SEATTLE—LMN Architects announces the unveiling of their design for the new Computer Science and Engineering Building, Phase 2 for the University of Washington. The new 138,000-square-foot facility will help meet the soaring demand for education in computer science, which has recently surpassed business as the most popular major at the University of Washington. CSE2 will complement the existing 165,000-square-foot Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, also designed by LMN, which was completed in 2003.

SEATTLE—Three buildings in Pioneer Square will be significantly renovated to accommodate a new retail, office and residential destination that reinvigorates the entire block. The pedestrian-friendly development within Pioneer Square will be a central part of the reawakening of this vibrant Seattle neighborhood while augmenting its historic character. This transformative project is being developed by Urban Villages Inc., together with Manchester Capital Management.