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Edgemere, the Dallas luxury retirement home that filed for bankruptcy in mid-April, will be permitted to tap $10.1 million in financing to carry it through the end of the year as it reorganizes under court supervision, the Dallas Morning News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michelle Larson last week approved the emergency funding request from the operators of the 504-unit community that allows seniors to age into different levels of care without moving, according to court documents. The judge also ruled that Edgemere doesn’t need to make immediate rent payments to its landlord, InterCity Investments, but must set aside those funds in an escrow account to prove it has the money. Judge Larson said that Edgemere seems to have a genuine interest “to ensure liquidity and success during the reorganization.” Edgemere lost $30 million in 2021 partly due to falling occupancy rates. Its bankruptcy filing said its assets and liabilities are both between $100 million and $500 million, and its creditors total as many as 5,000, including families whose relatives paid hefty deposits to move into Edgemere. The judge was well aware that the relationship between the retirement home and its landlord has soured. The landlord is upset that Edgemere has gotten itself into financial trouble, due to increased competition in the area, large capital expenses and the COVID-19 impact on move-ins. Edgemere defaulted on rent payments starting last fall before bondholders saved it by paying the rent it had missed. Edgemere is also upset with the landlord, which it has accused of trying to take over the land along with private equity firm Kong Capital.

The U.S, and European real estate markets are experiencing a downwards shift in prices as buyers fall away, according to the global chief investment officer of Hines, one of the largest closely held real estate investors in the world, Bloomberg News reported. Prices have fallen by about 5% to 10% compared to a year earlier in some areas, according to David L. Steinbach, with Europe following a trajectory set in the U.S. “I think we’re in for a rough few months,” he said. “This year is going to be choppy water.” Businesses are re-examining expansion plans in light of higher costs, Steinbach said in an interview in Abu Dhabi. Rising interest rates are feeding through into higher funding costs, further dampening demand, he added. “Higher inflation is without a doubt making its way into private real estate,” Steinbach said. “The bidding pools are becoming thinner.” Real estate can provide a hedge against inflation as some leases are indexed to take account of rising prices. But more than a decade of rock bottom rates and anemic returns in bond markets pushed up prices to record levels in many areas, making them vulnerable to rising borrowing costs.

South Carolina’s York County is suing Panthers owner David Tepper’s companies and the City of Rock Hill for at least $21 million over the failed completion of the team’s proposed $800 million practice facility and headquarters, the Associated Press reported. The structure remains half-built in Rock Hill, S.C., with no plans of being finished. Tepper’s real estate company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on June 2 after having invested more than $175 million into the facility. It is located about 25 miles south of the team’s current downtown stadium and headquarters in Charlotte. Among Tepper’s companies named in the lawsuit are DT Sports Holding, LLC, Appaloosa Management LP and Tepper Sports Holding, Inc. York County officials say the purpose of the lawsuit is to protect the county and its taxpayers and recover damages caused by these defendants. The complaint filed Thursday said Tepper and his companies took $21 million from a special penny sales tax intended to expand a road in York County and used the money for what the county’s lawyers called a “failed vanity project.”

The cost of renting an apartment or home is climbing quickly, keeping inflation high and making life tougher for households on a tight budget, the New York Times reported. The price of renting a primary residence climbed by 5.2 percent in the year through May, with the cost rising 0.6 percent compared with the prior month, matching its quick pace in April. A measure that uses rents to estimate the consumption value of owning a home is also picking up rapidly, and actually accelerated slightly on a monthly basis. Housing costs make up a big part of the overall inflation index, so they are keeping pressure on prices overall even as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to cool inflation down. In fact, there could be a period when higher mortgage rates prevent renters from moving into homeownership, keeping the rental market stretched. Further rent inflation is a near inevitability. Market rents increased sharply throughout 2021, and those trends seep slowly into the official inflation data, since they measure not just new leases but also existing rentals.

A former senior executive at Better.com alleged in a lawsuit that the online mortgage lender misled investors in financial filings and other representations it made as it attempts to go public, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sarah Pierce, Better.com’s former executive vice president for sales and operations, alleged in the suit that Chief Executive Vishal Garg and the company misrepresented Better.com’s business and prospects to keep investors onboard with a planned merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The deal was agreed to in May 2021 and has yet to close. Ms. Pierce said in the suit that she was pushed out of her role at the company in February in retaliation for raising these issues. She has also filed a complaint alleging retaliation with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, according to a footnote in the suit. Better.com was a major winner of the boom in housing prices and mortgage refinancing that accompanied the pandemic and low interest rates. The company grew revenue nearly 10-fold to $876 million in 2020 from the year prior, posted a profit of $172 million and hired thousands as it rushed to keep up with the market, company filings said. It raised $500 million from SoftBank Group Corp. last spring and weeks later said it planned to go public at a valuation of $7 billion. Better.com has since been rocked by the rise in interest rates and resulting sharp pullback in refinancings and a highly publicized controversy when Mr. Garg laid off 900 workers via a Zoom call in December. He took a brief leave after the call sparked an uproar. The company has laid off thousands more as the market for SPAC deals has also cooled.

The developer of American Dream, the $6 billion mega-shopping mall in East Rutherford, N.J., has failed to make its semiannual interest payment for an $800 million municipal bond, according to a notice to bondholders on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bondholder trustee U.S. Bank NA said that developer Triple Five Group didn’t deposit funds for an interest payment due Wednesday and bondholders were paid from an $11.35 million debt service reserve account. Triple Five didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The trustee said it notified the developer to make the payment by June 16 to avoid a default. Banks and bondholders lent about $2.7 billion to build American Dream, the country’s second-largest mall. After many years of construction delays, the sprawling shopping mall and entertainment center near the Meadowlands Sports Complex opened in October 2019 under its third owner, Canada’s Triple Five. The coronavirus pandemic caused it to shut down a few months later, before reopening in October 2020.

The Carolina Panthers’ proposed $800 million practice facility project in Rock Hill, S.C., has been canceled after team owner David Tepper’s real estate company filed for chapter 11 protection in Delaware on Wednesday night, the Associated Press reported. Tepper, who made billions in hedge funds, is the NFL’s wealthiest owner. The filing will not affect the NFL’s Panthers or Major League Soccer’s Charlotte FC in any way. It’s unclear at this point what will happen to the half-built practice facility. Tepper has invested more than $175 million into the facility, which is located about 25 miles south of the team’s current downtown stadium and headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. GT Real Estate Holdings, LLC (GTRE), a Delaware limited liability company, announced late yesterday that is has begun a court-led financial restructuring process in Delaware to effect an orderly wind-down of the project. The action follows the termination and rescission of the agreements with the City of Rock Hill that related to the project, which GTRE previously announced.

A bankruptcy judge installed a chapter 11 trustee to oversee the bankrupt Williamsburg Hotel, wresting control from its owner-developers after finding they had used the Brooklyn property’s funds on other unrelated investments, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., ruled after a three-day trial that developers Toby Moskovits and Michael Lichtenstein can’t be trusted to continue running the hotel operation and that an independent trustee should be installed to protect the business and its creditors. Mortgage lender Benefit Street Partners LLC had requested the appointment of a trustee in the bankruptcy case of the 147-room hotel, following reports by a court-appointed examiner that Ms. Moskovits and Mr. Lichtenstein siphoned off cash from the business, which they deny. The judge’s ruling snarls the developers’ efforts to end the hotel’s bankruptcy by restructuring its mortgage debt and pumping in $11 million in capital to retain their ownership interests. Benefit Street has argued for a sale of the hotel based in part on allegations that Ms. Moskovits and Mr. Lichtenstein had diverted revenue from the hotel to a related management company and other affiliated entities they controlled.

Dozens of Sears Hometown stores are closing and holding liquidation sales, according to Facebook posts from the shuttering locations, Axios.com reported. Sears and Kmart have closed thousands of stores and cut around 250,000 jobs over the last 17 years. The two iconic retailers were owned by Sears Holding, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018 and escaped liquidation when Eddie Lampert's Transformco acquired them out of bankruptcy. Transformco also acquired Sears Hometown stores in 2019. Transformco did not provide a list of the closing locations or how many will remain, but stores around the country posted announcements on their Facebook pages viewed by Axios. As of April 2022, there were three remaining Kmart stores in the continental U.S.