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Real-estate calendar
CREDAA, FIABCI AREAA Networking event
Shindig in Kent
222 1st Ave S ~ Historic District ~
Kent, WA 98032
September 13, 2011
Time: 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Limited to the first 50 people
RSVP : cheryl.mcivor@markoagroup.com
Local
Seattle's brownfield efforts lauded
Seattle's efforts to clean up its brownfields — abandoned and sometimes contaminated industrial sites — are being lauded nationally.
Developers struggle to get ground-floor retail leases
They're all over — newly constructed office and residential buildings sitting over a wealth of emptiness on the first floor. The signs in the windows read: "retail space for rent."
Land prices rising for development sites
Development sites are an increasingly hot commodity nationwide after years of attracting very little buyer interest……
Schnitzer Sells Two Office Buildings in Seattle for Total of $480 Million
Schnitzer West LLC, a Seattle-based real estate developer, sold two office buildings in the city for $480 million. The buyer was J.P. Morgan Asset Management, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.
Seattle Office Buildings Sold in Top-Dollar Deal
A J.P. Morgan real estate fund is paying top prices for a pair of downtown Seattle office buildings, one with retailer Amazon.com as its main tenant, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bankers, brokers optimistic about commercial space
A sense of optimism is taking hold in Portland’s real estate community as leasing transactions pick up, investment-grade properties sell for record prices and employment levels show improvement.
Business Notes - Albany Democrat Herald
New Lebanon Habitat director: Debbie Roberts has been named executive director of Lebanon Area Habitat for Humanity. The Albany resident is a graduate of Oregon State University with a business degree. She has owned and operated a residential and commercial real estate company and been a grant writer…..
Top US cities where it's cheaper to rent than buy
It’s much cheaper to rent a home than buy one in Seattle, and only three other major U.S. cities are better for renters, according to a new study.
National
Linkage in Income, Home Prices Shifts
Home prices in some of the nation's hardest-hit metro areas have fallen far below pre-bubble levels, stirring concerns that properties in those markets are undervalued
New Life for Stalled Project
Related Cos. bought control of a half-built skyscraper in Chicago's downtown on Tuesday in a bid to restart construction on the site, people involved with the deal said.
Landlords' Senior Moment
With investors bidding up the price of senior housing, one of Canada's biggest landlords is looking to put as much as 40% of its U.S. property, or as many as 2,900 units, on the block.
Complaint Saps REIT Sales
A popular family of real-estate funds that has raised billions of dollars from small investors over the years saw sales plunge in its latest fund in June, after a securities regulator filed a complaint against the broker that markets the funds.
With Uncle Sam, Check Is in Mail
Even if the federal government gets its act together and is able to pay its bills on time, it already has a reputation as a laggard with the nation's largest mall owner.
David Simon, chief executive of Simon Property Group, says the federal government is always a month behind on rent on space it leases from the mall owner.
Returns of Offices, Apartments Drop
Capitalization rates, used by real-estate investors to measure the annual return of income-producing properties, continued to fall last month. The average cap rate for office properties in central business districts was 6.47% in June, down from 6.72% in the same month a year earlier. The average cap rate for apartment buildings was 6.45% in June, down from 6.95% a year earlier.
Colonial Makes Deal for Apartments
Colonial Properties Trust said it has agreed to sell as many as 5,700 apartments for $338 million.
Colonial didn't identify the buyer of the apartments in 18 apartment communities in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. But a person familiar with the matter said the buyer was a subsidiary of Elco Holdings Ltd., an Israeli-based investment company. Elco couldn't be reached for comment.
MGM Resorts International on Monday reported gains in revenue and profit for the second quarter as Las Vegas Strip casinos appeared to be in the midst of a slow period of recovery from a sharp and stubborn decline in recent years.
Colorado REIT Makes Bet on Manhattan Apartments
UDR Inc. has agreed to buy an upscale downtown Manhattan apartment building in a $325 million deal that reflects the giant real-estate investment trust's efforts to become a major player in the lucrative coastal markets, company officials said.
Wells Fargo & Co. is the winning bidder for Bank of Ireland's $1.4 billion U.S. commercial-real-estate loan portfolio, according to people familiar with the matter, marking the latest sale of U.S. real-estate debt by a troubled Irish bank.
Market Turmoil Stings Commercial Sector
Tremors in the market for commercial-mortgage-backed securities are hindering the recovery of the commercial-property sector.
Over the past 18 months, values nationally have been rising, thanks in part to Wall Street's success in rekindling the business of pooling together commercial mortgages and selling them to investors as bonds. This has provided a critical source of deal financing for property buyers.
Mall owner General Growth Properties Inc. chose a perplexing name last week for its planned spinoff of 30 low-quality malls: Rouse Properties Inc.
Georgia firm to buy Uptown Station
FORT WALTON BEACH — One of the area’s most popular destinations for both locals and tourists likely will be under new ownership by the end of the month.
Buyers Wary of Building Bubble
Some of the nation's largest pension funds are starting to back away from trophy properties in the most expensive real-estate markets over concerns a new bubble is inflating.
Hotelier Geller Again Rides a Wave
Boom-and-bust hotelier Laurence Geller is on another upswing, having orchestrated a string of clever deals this year to rescue Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc. and its 17 trophy hotels from the brink of financial ruin.
Commercial real estate could be losing its cachet as a safe-haven investment due to concerns about the economy and reduced access to bank financing for landlords.
International
Financial Update –
As the nation’s largest title insurance company, we issue more title insurance policies and provide more title insurance coverage for more homeowners than any other company in the country. In addition, we provide our policyholders with the peace of mind that comes with unrivaled financial strength.
With a reserve for claim losses of $2.15 billion, more than the total reserves of the next three largest title insurers combined, and our highly liquid investment portfolio of more than $4.98 billion, again more than the combined assets of the rest of the title industry, our numbers speak for themselves. No matter how you measure financial strength, we outdistance the competition.
'Accuracy' fears on Land Registry
The Government's planned Land Registry could end up "being less than accurate", a Bahamian attorney warned yesterday, because unlike other Caribbean countries this nation is aiming to enter real estate ownership information without previously "vetting all rights and interests" in every parcel.
Indigenous Costa Rican Families Removed from Land
In what appears to be the latest attack on the Indigenous of Costa Rica involving land claims issues, security guards of Italian businessman, Idolo Augustine Mastronei, violently removed a group of Bribri families in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica according to Intercontinental Cry.
Judge Tells ESun to Mediate $4 Billion Macau Casino Dispute With Investors
A Hong Kong judge told an eSun Holdings Ltd. unit and its partners in a Macau, China, casino project including Oaktree Capital Management LP and Silver Point Capital LP to settle their dispute through mediation.
Real estate investor sues Romania over high rise
A real estate investor is suing Romania after an appeals court upheld a ruling halting work on an office building in Bucharest.
Latin America - Landesa Rural Development Institute
While a law professor at the University of Washington, Roy Prosterman, a Harvard Law School graduate who began his career practicing law on Wall Street, came upon a law review article that raised land confiscation as an acceptable tool for land reform in Latin America. The idea seemed to Professor Prosterman to be utterly dangerous.
Cracks in China Housing Push
Cracks are starting to appear in China's drive to build low-income housing as concerns rise that a rush to meet government targets is making for shoddy construction, fears made more intense after a train crash last month highlighted the speed with which China carries out many of its infrastructure projects
Hotelier Is Upbeat Despite Economy
LONDON—InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, the world's largest hotel operator by number of rooms, said Tuesday it is confident of expanding its global footprint, even as macroeconomic debt woes in the U.S. and Europe create uncertainty.
Chinese Property Firms Getting Squeezed
BEIJING—China's property developers are heading for a funding crunch in the next several months, analysts and industry executives say, as the government tightens access to credit from the lightly regulated trust firms that have become the sector's biggest lenders.
Real Estate in Germany Beckons to Investors
FRANKFURT—The German real-estate-investment-trust market is gaining momentum, as the global economy struggles to recover from the financial crisis and investors take a new interest in the euro zone's economic engine.
More Strong Property Earnings From China
HONG KONG—Country Garden Holdings Co. said Tuesday its first-half net profit rose 63% from a year earlier because of strong property sales, adding the Chinese developer will continue to expand its footprint in China.
As international investors gradually return to the Danish property market, real-estate companies from Sweden have been among the first to take advantage of opportunities in their neighboring country.
Executive Board
The Executive Board of CREDAA is comprised of professionals who each are experts in their own fields, and have pulled together their talents to deliver a management team that recognizes it’s responsibility to carry out the mission, policies and strategies established by the Board and to carry out the operation of the association's business.
Lehman Cranks Up Sales as Prices Rise
The estate of Lehman Brothers, the failed investment bank, is ramping up sales of its property portfolio as commercial real-estate prices recover, in a move that could help creditors of the defunct firm.
Rental Options Sought On Foreclosed Homes
The Obama administration will announce plans Wednesday to seek investors' ideas for turning thousands of foreclosed properties owned by government-backed entities into rental homes, according to administration officials.
Investors willing to step into distressed situations with fresh capital are seeing a surge in business now that lenders are showing a greater willingness to rework deals.
Field Narrows in Race for Loans
A week after more than two dozen firms bid on Anglo Irish Corp.'s $9.5 billion real-estate loan portfolio, the field has been cut in half. And one powerhouse group led by TPG Capital already is out of the running, according to people familiar with the process.
A glut of unsold multimillion-dollar vacation homes in the ski town of Vail, Colo., has postponed the start of Vail Resorts Inc.'s huge Ever Vail mixed-use project.
Beazer Loss Widens as Closings Fall
NEW YORK—Beazer Homes USA Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter loss widened as the home builder saw closings tumble and revenue slide from a year earlier.
The results, released Tuesday, continue a sluggish earnings season as home builders struggle in the fifth year of the industry downturn.
BofA Sells Part of Mortgage Portfolio to Fannie Mae
Bank of America Corp. has agreed to sell part of its home-loan portfolio to government-controlled housing giant Fannie Mae, as the bank looks to shed assets and pare its exposure to an array of mortgage woes.
RE Trends
Los Angeles Mayor Urges End to Tax Limits for Businesses
Calling California's law limiting property taxes "a corporate tax giveaway," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday he wanted businesses removed from the protections of the measure, known as Proposition 13.
Is Housing-Market Squeeze Tightening?
At the start of the year, home builders were cautiously optimistic about their prospects for 2011. Home prices were picking up, prompting some builders to buy additional land and start to plan new communities.
Mortgage Bonds Meet a Pushback
NEW YORK—Investors wrenched big concessions on commercial mortgage-backed securities out of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup and other Wall Street dealers last week, signaling a rocky road ahead for a market whose recovery is key to the U.S. real-estate recovery.
Debt From the Boom Leaves Jameson Inns Vulnerable
With crunch time rapidly approaching for Jameson Inns, investors including Colony Capital LLC and AllianceBernstein Holding LP are positioning themselves to try to take control of the "value" hotel chain by buying portions of its debt.
A key funding source that has made the commercial mortgage-backed securities revival possible may back further away from the market in coming months, leaving lenders to scramble for other buyers or watch their volume fizzle.
Beazer Loss Widens as Closings Fall
NEW YORK—Beazer Homes USA Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter loss widened as the home builder saw closings tumble and revenue slide from a year earlier.
The results, released Tuesday, continue a sluggish earnings season as home builders struggle in the fifth year of the industry downturn.
BofA Sells Part of Mortgage Portfolio to Fannie Mae
Bank of America Corp. has agreed to sell part of its home-loan portfolio to government-controlled housing giant Fannie Mae, as the bank looks to shed assets and pare its exposure to an array of mortgage woes.
Judgment Call: Appraisals Weigh Down Housing Sales
William Maxwell is an expert in finance. He's a professor at Southern Methodist University's business school, has co-authored a book on high-yield debt and spent years calculating values of financial markets.
S&P Credit Rating Downgrade's Impact on Commercial Real Estate
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While S&P's debt rating downgrade for the U.S. may not have come as a total surprise to investors, it’s important to understand the specific rationale the ratings firm cited for the downgrade, and perhaps more importantly, to understand what was not part of the reason for the downgrade.
Bank of America, Blackstone in Deal Talks
Bank of America Corp. and Blackstone Group LP are in advanced talks over private-equity real-estate assets the bank is trying to shed, according to people familiar with the matter.
Multi-family Starts and Completions, and Quarterly Starts by Intent
I've been forecasting that:
• Multi-family starts will be up significantly this year, but
• Multi-family completions will be at or near a record low.
Housing Starts and the Unemployment Rate
An update by request: The following graph shows single family housing starts (through July) and the unemployment rate (inverted) through July. Note: there are many other factors impacting unemployment, but housing is a key sector.
Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in July
While national existing home sales
last month were clearly up from last July’s post-tax-credit cycle low (on a seasonally adjusted basis), it appears as if national closed sales last month did not rebound on a seasonally adjusted basis from June’s level –
