A year that has doled out adversity and misery as if it were Halloween candy is ending at its darkest moment of all. As we reach the end of 2020, the U.S. is registering more than 200,000 new COVID-19 cases and more than 3,000 deaths on many days. We are about to have a holiday week when many of us will be unable to spend time with our friends and families. And many of us lost people we loved or know people that are struggling with the myriad long-term health conditions that COVID-19 is leaving in its wake.
It’s been a year filled with uncertainty, a whole lot of waiting to see what will happen and a good dose of attempting to figure out when we might return to some semblance of normal and how that normal will compare to our pre-pandemic lives.
Yet the old cliché “the darkest hour is just before the dawn” in this case is very apt. As deaths are peaking, the first approved vaccines have arrived and are being administered. With more vaccines potentially gaining government approval and the groundwork being laid for hundreds of millions of doses to be manufactured, distributed and administered, the end of the pandemic is within view. By this time next year, we hopefully will all be together again, getting back to many of the activities we’ve missed in 2020.
All that means we sit at a unique moment and the decisions made today will have big implications for commercial real estate stakeholders. There is distress to work through, but there could be a rapid and strong economic recovery in our near future. So, owners have added incentive to try and bear down and figure out how to hold on to assets rather than sell too cheaply. There will be adaptations made to various property types, but perhaps not to the dramatic degree many of us speculated. Urban real estate, offices, retail real estate, hotels all could see rapid recoveries.
At the same time, more types of investors than ever are looking at real estate investments and exploring all the options for placing capital in the sector. Many have done nothing more complex than owning their homes or investing in real estate equities. But as NREI readers know, there are many more ways to make money on real estate investment than that.
It’s in this context that we have decided to make a change ourselves—one that will keep us centered on commercial real estate while expanding the conversation to include a new universe of readers. For years National Real Estate Investor has been part of a broader WealthManagement.com editorial team, but we have largely operated as independent entities. That will now change. Effective immediately, NREI is now Wealth Management Real Estate (WMRE).
We remain committed to being the leading authority for analyzing trends and publishing insight on the commercial real estate sector, but will have a new look and expanded reach and coverage to a broader community of investment professionals through our sister brand. The new Wealth Management Real Estate (WMRE) will continue to serve the same core NREI audience of commercial real estate investors, developers, owners, lenders and brokerage firms with in-depth analysis of the sector. But now our expert real estate content and your communication efforts will be accessible to WealthManagement.com’s engaged community of 435,000 financial advisors, estate planners, attorneys, CPAs, and other influencers at technology and asset management firms.
Financial advisors regularly counsel clients to diversify portfolios in order to reduce risk—and consider commercial real estate an attractive alternative investment. Wealth management professionals have been a relatively untapped market for many commercial real estate firms, and these professionals need new sources of information about commercial real estate trends and opportunities in order to provide clients with trustworthy investment options. The WMRE brand will provide commercial real estate firms and financial advisors with a potent new avenue to share information and build stronger relationships with each other.
Content will be delivered as usual through magazines, newsletters and social channels, as well as available online at www.wealthmanagement.com/wmre. For the time being we will continue to update nreionline.com, but soon we will stop posting new content there. The archives will remain online and accessible indefinitely.
For our readers, not much will change. We have a new name and our content will move over to its new home online and in print. But besides that, you shouldn’t notice much of a difference. Our editorial team will continue to provide the industry’s leading audience of commercial real estate executives with the same timely, in-depth coverage they’ve come to depend on from us. You’ll continue to receive newsletters and magazines.
We look forward to this new chapter in our history. If you have any thoughts, concerns or questions, do not hesitate to contact us.