Billy Wadsack

An Addison-based real estate investor just made its first major office purchase in decades. Harkinson Investment Corp. acquired the 229K SF Tower 2600 office building at 2600 N. Central Expressway in Richardson from Orlando-based Deven Group, a subsidiary of Kajima Corp. from Japan. The purchase of the nine-story Class-A building is Harkinson's largest office investment in more than 25 years, according to a press release from the firm.

Following weeks of sell-offs of semiconductor and big technology stocks, investors have increasingly rotated into real estate, drawn by sectors with strong fundamentals, more predictable cash flows, and assets trading at more attractive valuations. The shift helped make real estate one of the stock market's best performing sectors during Q2 as the S&P 500 finished its strongest quarter in six years.

The third-richest person in the world’s bet on rent-stabilized apartments in New York City nearly went bust. Google co-founder Sergey Brin sold his shares in a real estate fund that has almost 5,900 units in the city for pennies on the dollar. The fund’s manager, A&E Real Estate, bought the stake in the properties from the Brin-affiliated Amphitheatre LLC, Bloomberg reported. Public records don’t show how much A&E paid to buy back the shares, but the gross value of Brin’s stake was around $79M.