Marines on a mission: Cullen Realty celebrates ranch sale

BY BRANDI SMITH

Jason Shaw still remembers the first time he visited Cullen Ranch, a 3,284-acre property in Liberty County. The retired U.S. Marine had been invited out for a veterans hunt, an event hosted by Meredith Cullen, a Marine himself.

“It was amazing to go out as a veteran to shoot quail. I had never even seen a quail,” Shaw laughs. “When I got out there, I was in awe. I thought, ‘Oh, my God.What is this place?’”

The two connected there in 2009 and, just a few years later in 2013, formed Cullen Realty Group. The sale of Cullen Ranch is one of the firm’s biggest deals.

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Texas ICSC Recap:Trends & Evolution of Mixed-Use Developments

BY DAVID SCHNITZER, CCIM

For this year’s Texas International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) Conference and Deal Making show inNovember, I had the pleasure of speaking with four of the state’s most active developers. Our topics ranged from discussing the trends of mixed-use to its evolution and where it may be headed.

We were privileged to have with us Mark Bulmash, Senior Vice President of Development for The Howard Hughes Corporation; Walt Mountford, Executive Vice President of KDC; Paris Rutherford. Paris is Principal of Catalyst Urban Development and Bill Burton, Executive Vice President at Hillwood Properties, Hillwood Urban.

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Real Estate and the Chinese: How to successfully work with Chinese real estate investors

BY PIUS K LEUNG

Chinese citizens are the top foreign buyers of homes in the U.S. According to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Chinese buyers have been the top foreign buyers of U.S. residential property for three straight years. As a group, they surpass top buyers from Canada, the U. K., Mexico, and India. Between April 2016 and March 2017, Chinese buyers purchased more than 40,500 housing units—this is a 40% increase compared to the same period the year before. The units purchased between April 2016 and March 2017 were worth a total of $31.7 billion. This is a 16% increase compared to the purchased value between April 2016 and March 2016. Texas, Virginia, Florida and Indiana have become top destinations in 2017 because Chinese buyers are looking beyond just California and New York.

Besides buying residential properties, according to Rosen Consulting Group, Chinese investors acquired at least $17.1 billion in commercial properties. Although 70% of investments are concentrated in the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, the remaining volume of investment has spread throughout the rest of the country.

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Helping Commercial Property Owners and Business Owners Get Back on Their Feet Post-Hurricane Harvey

BY BILL VOSS

In late August 2017, one of the largest hurricanes in U.S. history made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast, bringing with it nearly 10 trillion gallons of rain. Reservoirs filled above capacity, riverbanks burst and flooded, and buildings were completely destroyed. In the aftermath, Texas business owners were left facing catastrophic circumstances. At The Voss Law Firm, P.C., we know just how profound Harvey’s impact on the business community has been, and we know just how difficult it is to get insurance companies to fulfill their promises to help you rebuild.

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Everything’s bigger: An analysis of Texas’ fastest-growing cities

BY BRANDI SMITH

The lists pile up all year, each with their own metrics by which they measure a city’s growth. Some factor in physical expansion, while other focus specifically on population or industry. As different as they all seem to be, there’s a common thread running through each: cities in Texas are booming. The explosive growth isn’t isolated to a single region in Texas either. There are examples around Dallas, Houston, central Texas and west Texas. For the purposes of this article, we exploried * WalletHub’s recent compilation of “2017’s Fastest-Growing Cities in America” as well as
our own assessment of up and coming cities in Texas.

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