⚾ How a baseball team built a CRE empire

👋 Happy Sunday, Best Ever readers! One-dollar real estate listings are up nearly 83% over two years as sellers use it as a tactic to start auction-style bidding wars. One Newark home listed for $1 sold for $550,000. Well played.

In today’s newsletter, an MLB team builds a CRE empire, brokerages pivot, job growth leaders emerge, and an office opportunity flies under the radar (until now).

🕵‍♀️ But first … join us on September 2 at 2 pm EST for Fund Administration Demystified — an expert session designed for GPs who want to master fund operations complexities. Save your seat here.

🎓 Also, ICYMI: Last week’s virtual book publishing workshop was an absolute hit. If you missed it, you can download the full replay here. You won’t regret it.

Let’s CRE!

🗞️ NO-FLUFF NEWS
CRE HEADLINES

💻 Data Boom: Major CRE brokerages are pivoting to data centers as AI infrastructure spending reaches $375 billion globally in 2025. CBRE expects over half of its development profits to come from data center deals, as construction now outpaces office development nationwide.

🏗️ Permit Pockets: Six of the top 10 multifamily markets increased permitting in July despite the national slowdown, led by Dallas with 4,566 more units YoY, while Orlando surged 44% and Houston climbed 28%.

📦 Size Matters: Small industrial buildings maintain 4.4% vacancy rates compared to 21% for newer large warehouses, as three-quarters of construction involves projects over 200,000 SF while smaller properties account for just 10%.

🏢 Office Dip: U.S. office vacancy climbed to 19.4% in July as prices fell, with 42% of properties selling below previous valuations since 2023. Houston led with 69% discounts, while $27 billion in sales closed YTD at $182 PSF.

🎓 Student Shift: Student housing rent growth slowed to 0.9% in July as luxury amenities lose appeal, with students preferring co-working spaces over amenities like golf simulators as operators struggle to lease inventory at $905 per bed.

🏆 TOP STORY
HOW ONE MLB TEAM BUILT A CRE EMPIRE

While most sports franchises still rely on ticket sales and sponsorships, the Atlanta Braves have quietly built a billion-dollar real estate empire that's rewriting the playbook for professional sports revenue. 

The team's mixed-use development, The Battery, has become such a cash cow that it's generating $67.3 million annually from nine million visitors who spend nearly three hours on the property — and that's before accounting for their latest expansion moves that boosted development revenue 49% in Q2 alone.

The Braves didn't just build a ballpark village — they created what ESPN calls a "fourth phase" of ballpark evolution, where teams construct entire neighborhoods from scratch rather than building a stadium and hoping organic development follows. Truist Park and The Battery represent something unprecedented: a baseball team that became a real estate developer, controlling everything from office buildings to hotels to residential towers on a 75-acre site that literally didn't exist before 2017.

• The Financial Transformation: Forbes valued the Braves 15th among MLB teams before the move to their new Trust Park development, but they now rank 8th at $3 billion — a 250% increase that trails only the Dodgers, Phillies, and Astros during that span.

• A Year-Round Business: Unlike traditional stadium revenue tied to 81 home games, The Battery hosts 283 non-Braves events annually and maintains 1.675M SF of office space with blue-chip tenants like Comcast, Papa John's, and Truist Securities.

• Revenue Sharing Advantages: CRE development income isn't subject to MLB's revenue-sharing protocols, meaning the Braves keep 100% of profits from their real estate empire while competitors split traditional baseball revenues.

And the revenue keeps growing. The Braves’ April acquisition of the stadium-adjacent 34-acre Pennant Park office complex for $34 million immediately boosted development revenue 49% and added over 2,700 parking spaces for their nine million annual visitors.

The trend extends beyond Atlanta as teams realize stadium-adjacent real estate can generate more reliable income than sports operations. Copycat projects include:

• The Rangers' Texas Live! development

• The Mets' proposed $8 billion Metropolitan Park with a Hard Rock Casino

• The Giants’ partnership on San Francisco's Mission Rock development

• The White Sox's exploration of Chicago's 62-acre railyard development called The 78

• The Phillies and Orioles trading parking lots for mixed-use projects

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Braves broke the mold and proved that sports franchises can become legitimate CRE developers, creating sustainable revenue streams that operate independently of team performance or season schedules. This signals a new category of developer entering the market — one with built-in foot traffic, entertainment anchors, and deep community connections that traditional developers can't replicate.

🕵‍♀️ YOU’RE INVITED!
FUND ADMINISTRATION DEMYSTIFIED: WHAT EVERY GP SHOULD KNOW

😫 Tired of losing LP trust because of messy distributions? Stressed about compliance requirements you don't understand? Wondering when it's time to stop managing everything yourself?

On September 2 at 2 pm EST, we're hosting a FREE live session with Perry Zheng, founder and CEO of Cash Flow Portal, specifically for GPs who want to master the art of fund operations. With the takeaways from this session, you can:

🏢 Know exactly when fund administration becomes necessary

💰 Build LP trust through bulletproof investor allocations

📈 Master compliance requirements without the headaches

⚡ Slash operational errors and save hours with tech integration

Perry is the lead GP for 1,020+ apartment units and $25M+ in capital raises, generating 30%+ annualized returns for investors. He'll show you how to build efficient, scalable fund administration processes that strengthen LP relationships and free up your time to focus on deals.

This session is completely free and packed with insights. Can't make it to the live event? Register anyway, and we'll send you the replay 🚀

🗺️ ON THE MAP
THE NATION’S HOTTEST JOB GROWTH MARKETS

The nation's largest metros continue to dominate absolute job creation, with the top 10 markets adding 467,100 jobs in the year ending July 2025 — a 69% increase from the same period last year — according to RealPage. Perhaps most notably, Dallas-Plano-Irving dropped out of the top 10 for only the second time since the pandemic recession, ranking 12th with 22,200 jobs gained due to losses in manufacturing and professional services sectors.

Top 10 Markets by Total Job Gains:

1. New York, NY: 129,800

2. Philadelphia, PA: 65,300

3. Houston, TX: 62,600 

4. Charlotte, NC: 32,300 

5. Los Angeles, CA: 32,200 

6. San Antonio, TX: 28,500

7. Phoenix, AZ: 28,400 

8. Chicago, IL: 26,800 (T8)

9. Detroit, MI: 26,800 (T8)

10. Orlando, FL: 26,700

While large metros dominate raw job numbers, smaller markets typically lead in percentage growth rates, with state capitals, college towns, and tourist destinations showing the strongest relative employment gains. Eight of the top 10 markets from June retained their positions, with college towns like College Station, TX, and Fayetteville, AR, maintaining strong showings in the rankings.

Top 10 Markets by Job Growth Percentage:

1. Myrtle Beach, SC: 4.4%

2. College Station, TX: 4.1%

3. Fayetteville, AR: 3.7%

4. Charleston-North Charleston, SC: 3.4%

5. Boise, ID: 3.3% (T5)

6. Columbia, SC: 3.3% (T5)

7. Greenville-Spartanburg, SC: 3.0%

8. Salem, OR: 2.9%

9. Charlotte, NC: 2.8% (T9)

10. Albuquerque, NM: 2.8% (T9)

The 69% surge in job creation among top markets signals strong CRE demand in employment hubs, while growth concentration in smaller Sun Belt cities suggests emerging opportunities in secondary markets with better yields. This employment data provides a roadmap for where tenant demand and rental growth will likely be strongest.

🎙️ THE BEST EVER CRE SHOW
THE OFFICE OPPORTUNITY EVERYONE’S MISSING

Office has become an afterthought. Most investors won’t touch it. But Logan Freeman, a Kansas City-based investor and broker, has a different take. He joined Ash Patel on the Best Ever CRE Show this week to discuss the perfect storm of opportunity he’s seeing in Class B and C office — one that he believes could generate triple-digit returns for patient investors willing to think long-term.

Freeman's thesis centers on a massive service gap that has emerged in smaller office deals. 

📣 "Junior brokers have left the industry, meaning the folks that are doing the big office deals — the Class A office deals — they're focused on those major trophy assets," Freeman says. "But the folks on the Class B and maybe even Class C — smaller square footages — they're not being served. And so there's a big opportunity for someone to really play in that space."

• The fundamentals are compelling for contrarian investors. Freeman points to replacement costs of $300-400 PSF while quality assets can be acquired at $60-80 PSF. He's seeing 8-10% cap rates on deals as buyers price in significant risk, but the long-term upside potential is substantial.

• Return-to-office trends are creating unexpected tenant demand, particularly from small-to-medium businesses testing the waters with shorter lease terms. 

📣 "What people are doing,” Freeman says, “is they're dipping their toes in the water, saying, ‘Hey, we're not ready to commit to maybe a 10-year lease on 5,000 square feet. But if you can bring me a space that's 1,500 to 3,000 square feet, and I can do maybe a one-year or a three-year lease, I'd be interested in that."

• The key is location and adaptive reuse potential. Freeman advises investors to target well-located, well-trafficked areas where properties could potentially be converted to alternative uses in 10 years if office demand doesn't recover.

Financing remains challenging, requiring strong balance sheets and significant liquidity to demonstrate the ability to service debt regardless of occupancy levels. Banks remain reluctant to lend on partially occupied office buildings, making this strategy viable only for well-capitalized investors with experience and patience.

🎙️ Listen to Logan’s full episode here.

▶️ WATCH THE REPLAY
BECOME THE GO-TO CRE EXPERT IN YOUR MARKET

"This is so good, love what you're sharing! I just finished writing my first book and am set to launch, but with what you're sharing, you guys could really help me grow my business. I'm already thinking ahead to more books. I'm going to book a call!" 

That's what one attendee said during our virtual book publishing workshop this week alongside Chandler Bolt of selfpublishing.com.

Learn Chandler's proven strategies for creating your book in a single weekend without writing a word yourself and turning it into a 7-figure revenue engine. Whether you want to differentiate yourself from other GPs, attract high-net-worth investors, or command higher fees, this replay contains the roadmap you need to position yourself as the go-to authority in your market.