From the category archives:

commercial real estate loans

The High Cost of Low Interest Rates

October 4, 2011

This is not my headline, but I wish I had written it. It comes from REBusinessOnline which recently published a story about Ethan Penner and his perspective on the commercial real estate market. Penner’s comments are consistent with my view that the stampede into primary markets and core assets is overdone, just like the stampede […]

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San Francisco Leads Detroit In CMBS Delinquencies for Apartment Properties

October 13, 2009

San Francisco, once considered one of the strongest commercial real estate markets in the country, had one of the largest increases in overall CMBS default rates in the second quarter of 2009, up 444 basis points to 5.15% (and yes, this was even worse than Miami). Detroit was still the worst performing market, with an […]

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Long Odds For Apartment Owners In Vegas; Prices Down By At Least 60%

October 12, 2009

If you are investing in REITs right now, life is good. The US MSCI REIT index has doubled since hitting its lows in March, and in the second quarter Mid America (MAA) generated $.05/share in earnings from the sale of just one asset, a 36 year old, 96 unit apartment building in Grenada, Mississipi. Indeed, […]

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Bad Commercial Real Estate Loans Are Coming in Hot! And They’re Right on Schedule

August 12, 2009

It’s summertime and the living is easy, but if you’re a distressed debt broker, this is no time to be mixing Cuba Libres at the beach. There have been 72 bank failures in the first eight months of 2009, compared with 26 in all of 2008 and just 3 in 2007. So it should be […]

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Billions, Literally, Chasing Distressed Commercial Real Estate

July 15, 2009

Even with all the capital now chasing distressed commercial real estate, it’s still not clear whether these bargains are really much of a bargain. 250 Montgomery St., a downtown San Francisco office building that traded via a distressed note sale is the latest example of the uncertainty. The building, located on San Francisco’s “Wall Street […]

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Cliff Diving With New York City Landlords

June 3, 2009

According to Robert Knakal of the eponymous in Manhattan commercial real estate brokerage firm Massey Knakal, the dismantling of Wall Street on September 15th is also dismantling the net worth of hundreds of New York City landlords. It’s actually not that simple, but his excellent and striking sales data sets the stage: the New York […]

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FDIC Loan Sales – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

May 18, 2009

Last week, Zero Hedge attempted to make a tortuous connection between the sales prices of “performing” commercial real estate loans being sold by the FDIC and the book value of performing CRE loans held by healthy financial firms – presumably the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Aside from creating […]

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Commercial Real Estate Loan Originations Show Continued Deterioration in CRE

May 15, 2009

The Mortgage Bankers Association has released their quarterly survey of commercial/multi-family loan originations, and it shows continued dramatic deterioration in all CRE lending sectors, including an 80% plunge in bank lending. Earlier this week, I wrote that commercial real estate transaction volume had declined to practically zero, so it’s no surprise that loan originations would […]

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Dead on Arrival: Geithner’s Plan Can’t Stop The Tidal Wave of Commercial Mortgage Maturities

March 31, 2009

2005 is coming, and nobody can stop it. Like a giant flock of boomerangs, the mortgages originated during the boom years of 2005-2007 are returning home, and the bankers are already struggling to keep up with all the arrivals. Approximately 80% of new 2008 loans were originated simply to refinance existing maturing mortgages, compared with […]

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