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Workers are returning to U.S. offices at the highest rate since the pandemic forced most workplaces to temporarily close in 2020, as infection rates continue to fall and more companies intensify efforts to bring employees back, the Wall Street Journal reported. Office use on average was 47.5% of early 2020 levels for workers in the office over the five business days from Sept. 8 to Sept. 14 in the 10 major metro areas monitored by Kastle Systems. The company, which tracks security swipes into buildings, said that was the highest percentage since late-March 2020. Midweek days were especially strong, with office use for Tuesday and Wednesday last week at about 55% of the prepandemic workforce, also a high during the pandemic for those days, Kastle said. The data through last Wednesday were the most recent weekly figures available. Other indicators show a return-to-office pickup after Labor Day. On Wednesday, ridership on the Long Island Rail Road surpassed 200,000 for the first time since March 2020. Metro-North Railroad, another commuter line in the New York region, also reached a high for the pandemic period on Wednesday with 174,900 riders.

A New York real-estate investor said that he has reached an agreement with mortgage and mezzanine lenders that would allow him three more months to pay back more than $200 million before risking losing his properties in bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Robert Gans put a group of eight Manhattan and Queens real estate equity-holding entities into bankruptcy in June to stop the mezzanine lenders’ attempt to foreclose on the properties. As part of the proposed settlement filed on Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Gans filed chapter 11 petitions for an additional 10 real estate entities. The parties have agreed that Gans can keep his properties if he can pay back the lenders $200 million and other expenses in cash by Dec. 22. The lenders would take over all the properties in bankruptcy, which also include other lots in Manhattan and Queens, if Gans fails to make the payments by the deadline. The settlement still must be approved by the bankruptcy court.

Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper’s real estate company wants to revoke a bankruptcy settlement it negotiated with the city and county where its abandoned South Carolina practice facility was supposed to be built because it says the governments are making exorbitant and unreasonable demands, the Associated Press reported. GT Real Estate Holdings had offered $21 million to York County. It suggested giving the proceeds from selling part of its site in Rock Hill so the city would get at least $20 million. But the county and city have filed separate lawsuits and court papers. York County said it is entitled to more than $80 million in part to get back money from a special penny sales tax that was supposed to expand a road but Tepper’s company used for the proposed practice facility. Rock Hill sued for $20 million it spent on the project and has asked the bankruptcy case be heard in South Carolina, where most of the people who lost money are located, instead of Delaware, where GT Real Estate Holdings is incorporated.

Bond insurer Ambac Financial Group Inc cannot prove its $2.7 billion case against Bank of America over troubled mortgage-backed securities on evidence that BofA was a "bad actor" before the 2008 financial crisis, an attorney for the bank said yesterday in New York state court, Reuters reported. Ambac seeks to recoup more than $2 billion in insurance claims it paid to cover investor losses on securities backed by 375,000 home loans from Bank of America's Countrywide unit. As the trial in the 12-year-old case opened on Wednesday, an attorney for the bond insurer argued that Countrywide's own files show it systematically approved shoddy mortgages and pushed the risk onto investors and insurers. But that type of evidence is not sufficient to show the bank violated insurance agreements it made with Ambac, said the bank's attorney Enu Mainigi in her opening statement. Courts have ruled in other cases that insurers must prove such agreements were breached on a loan-by-loan basis, she said. Mainigi also said it was Ambac that accepted more risk in order to cash in on pre-2008 optimism in the housing market, until the financial crisis undermined borrowers' ability to repay their loans. "Now Ambac is here asking this court to conclude that somehow all of this is Countrywide's fault," she said. Between 2004 and 2006, Ambac insured securities backed by Countrywide loans worth $25 billion. The insurer claims 80% of the loans were the product of poor underwriting standards or had other deficiencies that violated insurance agreements, and that Bank of America failed to repurchase the loans as required.

Florida homeowners will see another surcharge included on their insurance premiums in 2023 in order to help the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) cover the claims from insurance companies that have gone into receivership, ABCActionNews.com reported. This new charge is the second to hit homeowners this year and the third in the last two years. When an insurance company goes insolvent and is liquidated, the FIGA steps in and takes on all of its existing claims and pays back premiums. From 2013 to 2020, the nonprofit never had to issue these assessments, but as multiple companies went into receivership last year, they took on thousands of claims and hundreds of millions in financial responsibility. FIGA’s executive director Corey Neal, just before May’s special session, said they had about 8,000 claims and expected maybe 2,000 more in coming months, many of those from St. Johns and Avatar Insurance. However, that was a serious underestimate because just three months later, after Southern Fidelity and then Weston went under. Now, FIGA has about 14,000 claims it needs to pay out.

Three Portland hotels are in foreclosure proceedings and could go up for auction, according to documents, KOIN.com reported. The hotels, which are all downtown, are the Hilton’s flagship, which is near 6th and Broadway, along with The Duniway on SW Taylor and The Dossier on SW Alder. The Hilton and Duniway hotels were owned by the same company, THI VI Portland LLC, while The Dossier was owned by Portland Hotel LLC, according to the documents. The documents indicate the Hilton and Duniway’s public auction will be on Sept. 13, while the public auction for The Dossier will be on Nov. 29. It comes as more hotels raise the alarm over a two-fold issue in downtown Portland in a Travel Portland report, which cited a lack of office workers and corporate clients needing rooms and conference spaces along with the rise in vandalism, crime and homeless camps downtown throughout the pandemic.

Luxury college student housing projects, once feared to be in jeopardy of bankruptcy at the onset of the pandemic, have since become a magnet for real estate investors, Bloomberg Law reported. College students with money to burn have more cushy living options than ever as real estate developers continue building and improving on luxury-style facilities near the nation’s largest universities. As a result, the fears of distress in the sector that bubbled up during earlier parts of the COVID-19 pandemic have largely proven unwarranted. “During COVID there was a big question about student housing as an asset class,” said Mitch Rosen, head of real estate at alternative investment firm Yieldstreet. “That has reversed.” The student housing sector experienced near-record deal levels in 2021, topping out above $10 billion in investment sales, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE. The total is more than twice the volume seen in 2020, it said. The industry has been encouraged by recent on-campus student enrollment rates and a growing preference for apartments with posh amenities. Institutional investors have maintained an interest in properties on or near large universities known for their football teams and other sports programs. Optimism in the market was punctuated in April as Blackstone Inc. announced a $12.8 billion acquisition of student housing operator American Campus Communities. Some projects have run into financial problems, including buildings backed by municipal bonds. The occasional missteps have allowed other well-capitalized firms to scoop up desirable properties at a discount.