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Metropolitan Brewing LLC filed for bankruptcy this month, citing, among other debts, $1 million in back rent owed to its landlord, the Chicago Business Journal reported. According to an Oct. 3 bankruptcy filing in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, the Chicago Brewery owes back rent to Rockwell Properties LLC for its 33,000-square-foot site at 3057 N. Rockwell St. Founded in 2008, Metropolitan Brewing signed a 15-year lease for its current location in 2015. The million-dollar figure for back rent is in dispute, however, according to the Chicago Tribune, and will need to be forgiven in full or in part in order for the company to restructure. If Metropolitan Brewing is unable to rework its debt, the business may have to sell or liquidate, said owners Doug and Tracy Hurst. In addition to back rent, Metropolitan Brewing’s debts cited in the filing include $1 million to North Carolina-based Live Oak Banking Co. for an equipment loan and $386,000 to the Small Business Administration for an Economic Impact Disaster Loan. The brewery currently has eight full-time and 14 part-time employees, and last year grossed $2.16 million, according to the report.

The chance for persistent inflation to keep interest rates higher and potential losses in the commercial real estate market are among the top concerns of respondents to a Federal Reserve survey on financial stability, the U.S. central bank said on Friday, Reuters reported. The latest version of the central bank's semiannual report found that three-quarters of survey respondents cited those two issues as prominent near-term risks. Concerns over bank stability following the failure of three large firms this spring were cited by roughly half, similar to levels seen in the May version of the report. Economic weakness in China had grown in the Fed's semiannual survey, cited by 44% of those surveyed as a top risk, compared to just 12% in May. But the war between Russia and Ukraine slipped to the 11th-most cited concern by respondents, after it was cited as the top financial stability concern one year ago. The Fed noted that its survey of looming risks was closed in early October, before war broke out between Israel and the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

Rite Aid plans to plans to close about 7% of its stores initially, as the drugstore chain makes its way through its chapter 11 bankruptcy process, the Associated Press reported. The company submitted a list of 154 stores in a court filing. Most of the chain’s stores are on the East and West Coasts, and the list reflects that. Several locations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Washington made the list. The company also plans to close some stores in Michigan and Ohio as well. Rite Aid said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it has more than 2,200 locations in 17 states. That filing also noted that the company lost about $1.3 billion in the first half of its fiscal year. That’s more than double the $441 million it lost in the same period during the previous fiscal year.

A number of U.S. banks saw continued pain in the third quarter on delinquent commercial real estate (CRE) loans in their portfolios, as stress in the sector persists, Reuters reported. Building owners that borrowed money to finance their properties are being squeezed by high interest rates and vacant offices as workers opt to work from home. Weak demand for offices could trigger a wave of borrowers to default on their loans and put pressure on banks and other lenders, which are hoping to avoid selling loans at significant discounts. As a result, banks recorded continued provisions for credit losses and charge-offs from the previous quarter, driven by their non-performing (NPL), or delinquent, CRE loans.

U.S. single-family homebuilding rebounded sharply in September, boosted by demand for new construction amid a dearth of previously owned homes, but the highest mortgage rates in nearly 23 years could slow momentum, Reuters reported. Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, increased 3.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 963,000 units last month, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. Data for August was revised to show starts dropping to a rate of 933,000 units instead of 941,000 units as previously reported. The rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage surged in September, averaging 7.31% in the last week of the month, the highest since late 2000, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. Mortgage rates have risen in tandem with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which has spiked to a 16-year high, in part reflecting the economy's resilience.

Florida’s explosion in insurance premiums threatens to ground the state’s highflying housing market. Florida home prices soared more than 60% since 2019, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin, the Wall Street Journal reported. That rate has slowed more recently, and the state’s home prices in September edged up 2.7% over the previous year, Redfin said. While rising interest rates and the large price run-up are the biggest factors, higher insurance costs are starting to play a role, brokers say. Home-insurance costs are rising everywhere, but they are rising especially fast in Florida where premiums have tripled in the past five years. Some premiums have increased by about nine times what they were last year, according to Oscar Seikaly, chief executive of NSI Insurance Group, who said he has handled insurance premiums that cost as much as $600,000 a year for multimillion-dollar homes. In few places are soaring premiums more apparent than in Flamingo Park, where a combination of older, historic homes and ballooning property values have caused insurance costs to double for many homeowners in the past year. Even though the West Palm Beach neighborhood resides on a coastal ridge, where most of the homes are well above sea level and outside the flood zone, insurance rates for wind coverage are soaring there.

Shooting up from the downtown skyline is a gleaming 66-story glass behemoth, a place “where Fortune 500 companies, high-rise residents and premier retailers come together to create a community of their own,” as sleek marketing brochures put it. The tech giant Meta scooped up all 19 floors of office space as construction was underway in early 2022. But when Austin’s tallest building officially opens later this year, all that office space will be empty, the Washington Post reported. Meta has ditched its move-in plans and is now trying to sublease 589,000 square feet of offices, 1,626 parking spots, 17 private balconies and a half-acre of green space. So far: no takers. The skyscraper known as “Sixth and Guadalupe” is a prime example in the city that made a huge bet on the post-pandemic commercial real estate economy. While other cities worry about a glut of office space as workers resist returning to the familiar 9-to-5 grind, Austin’s challenges are Texas-sized. Here, about 6 million square feet of new office space will hit the market in the next few years — equivalent to 105 football fields. Between spaces completed since 2020 and what’s still in the pipeline, the office market will grow nearly 25 percent — the fastest rate on the continent. That includes projects such as the Waterline, which will become the tallest building in all of Texas, at 74 stories, when it opens in 2026, and a mammoth 1.1 million-square-foot complex on the city’s outskirts where a former 3M campus is being redeveloped (into what, exactly, is still unclear). And the vast majority of projects are blazing ahead without companies lined up to move in. Roughly 87 percent of new office space is expected to open vacant, according to data from the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Montgomery Realty Group, the developer behind a planned 18-story hotel in San Francisco, has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, The Real Deal reported. The petition comes just a day before a scheduled foreclosure auction of the site from the firm’s lenders. The site, located at 447 Battery Street in the Financial District, contains the remnants of the Jones-Thierbach Coffee Company. In May 2022, the three-story, 27,000-square-foot commercial property was designated a city landmark owing to “its association with the San Francisco coffee industry and with reconstruction of downtown San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake and fires,” according to Planning Department records. Montgomery first submitted development proposals for the property in 2017. Initial plans called for a 19-story building with 182 hotel rooms, eight condos and a 4,700-square-foot restaurant. The proposal for the site later changed into an 18-story property with 198 hotel rooms, nine residential units and two restaurant spaces totaling nearly 7,500 square feet. Montgomery, headed by Rajendra Maniar, filed its bankruptcy petition on Oct. 4, according to records from California’s Northern District court. The firm estimated its liabilities between $10 million and $50 million.