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Landlords Are Practically Giving Malls Away

  • Landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept
  • Starwood and KKR, once big buyers, are now looking to sell
Bloomberg business news
Mall Owners Are Desperate for Buyers
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Landlords have malls they’d like to unload. But who’d want to buy them?

As they battle the rise of e-commerce, U.S. mall owners are trying to clear their books of fading centers so they can focus on the most-profitable ones. That’s proving difficult, with just a shallow pool of investors who are willing to take on a declining mall and even fewer who would pay what the landlords want. Only about $3 billion of retail real estate changed hands in April, a 27 percent drop from a year earlier and the lowest monthly tally since February 2013, according to the latest data from Real Capital Analytics Inc.