Free Republic

Banks are in for another ugly year in 2010. But this time the problem will be the big batch of deteriorating commercial real estate loans on their books.. (Read our cover story about why this real estate bust is different.) Commercial real estate loans that banks underwrote and held on their books skyrocketed to approximately $190 billion in 2007, up from $11 billion in a single year, a decade earlier. In all, banks hold some $1.8 trillion of commercial real estate debt on their books. Trouble is, nobody knows just what the values of the loans on bank books’ are...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that pigs in a commercial herd in Indiana have tested positive for swine flu, making it the first time the virus has been found in such hogs. The USDA said it discovered four tissue samples that tested positive for the virus using its swine surveillance program. The sample was collected in late October, and the USDA said the pigs as well as the people caring for the animals have recovered. Last month, tests confirmed that several show pigs at the Minnesota State Fair contracted swine flu, also known as the H1N1...

Owners of properties such as office buildings, warehouses and malls will suffer a surge of painful defaults, write-downs as the market finally faces up to the reality of its diminished conditions. fter spending more than a year in suspended animation, the commercial real estate industry is expected to hit bottom in 2010 with a wrenching thud. Owners of business properties such as office buildings, warehouses and malls will suffer a surge of painful defaults, write-downs and workouts with their lenders as the market finally faces up to the reality of its diminished conditions, according to a report set for release...

Up 5.5% this month. Delinquencies in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) accelerated in October, according to a report from Barclays Capital (BarCap). The 30-plus day delinquency rate jumped 41bps to 5.5% in October as current loans deteriorated and transferred to special servicers. Continue reading »

Soros, Ross: Commercial Real-Estate Crash Is Coming And It's Going To Be Terrific Henry BlodgetNov. 1, 2009, 8:35 AM The commercial real-estate crash is the worst-kept secret in the economy, but it's happening. It's just taking a long time to play out. (Except in the hotel industry, which essentially has "one-day leases"). Wilbur Ross and George Soros were freaking out about it on Friday: John Gittelsohn and Thomas R. Keene, Bloomberg: Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.” “All of the components of real estate...

As I walked home recently from a weekend trip to the grocery store, I passed a total of 13 vacant offices with signs saying "for lease" or "for sale." These spaces ranged from approximately 500 to 5,000 square feet according to their signs, and they are stretched along a main, commercial street in the center of Tucson, AZ. There is also an eight-screen movie theater that sits empty as well. These empty commercial spaces ... are empty now, and have been for quite some time. I found it intriguing that both in the central portion of Tucson and also in...

In what could have been the biggest piece of news today, yet making little headway into the media, the Fed announced that it is adopting a policy statement supporting "prudent commercial real estate loan workouts." And even though in traditional Fed fashion, the statement says a lot but is even more vague, some of the implications from a more nuanced read have very serious adverse implications for commercial real estate. The section: Financial institutions that implement prudent loan workout arrangements after performing comprehensive reviews of borrowers' financial conditions will not be subject to criticism for engaging in these efforts, even...

Commercial Real Estate Musical Chairs Mike Mish Shedlock Oct 16, 2009 9:15 am New chairs keep being added, but fewer people are playing. Commercial real-estate vacancies hit nearly 25% in the Phoenix Valley area. Scottsdale and Southeast Valley vacancies are even higher. Consider Office vacancy rates in Valley hit record. Nearly one out of every four square feet of Valley office space was vacant in the third quarter ending September 30, commercial-real-estate experts said. That's about 28 million square feet of empty space, according to Phoenix commercial-realty brokerage Colliers International, one of several Valley firms tracking the progress of sales...

Commercial Real Estate: The Shoe Dropped In California Yael BizouatiOct. 6, 2009, 4:23 PM More proof that the commercial real estate crash is coming: hotel foreclosures in California have more than tripled in the first nine months of this year, according to Bloomberg. Foreclosures in Dana Point climbed to 47 in January through September from 15 a year earlier, and properties in default more than quadrupled to 259. Loans secured by more than 1,500 hotels with a total outstanding balance of $24.5 billion are in danger of default.[snip]

Budweiser has a series of commercials called, "Real Men of Genius". They actually name these commercials, like "Mr. Nudist Colony Activity Coordinator", or "Mr. Giant Foam Finger Maker". Ok, here is my contribution to Budweiser's "Real Men of Genius" commercials. I call this one, "Mr. Complicated Tax Code Writer". Singer in background: "Real Men of Genius" Announcer: Today, we salute you, Mr. Complicated Tax Code Writer! (Singer in background: "Mr. Complicated Tax Code Writer") Announcer: High on your seat in DC, you are the brightest and smartest who knows best for everyone. Getting paid to think of new ways to...

An Aids-awareness advert depicting Adolf Hitler having unprotected sex has been condemned by mainstream health charities for stigmatising people infected with the virus. The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator. But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler. "Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their...

At a time when retail landlords are struggling with record vacancies, a novel sales strategy employed by some tenants is helping them fill the gaps and earn some additional rental income. Pop-up stores, which allow a retailer to sign a temporary lease lasting anywhere from two months to six months, have traditionally been scoffed at by mall and shopping center owners who could take their pick of permanent tenants. But in today’s environment, with retailers wary of new store openings, pop-ups are becoming a hot new trend and landlords are finding it suits them just fine. “I am seeing more...

Video at site Another prediction for how many small and medium-sized banks are bound to fall. It seems everyone has an opinion. The Real Deal passes along this video of Harrison Lefrak predicting 500 bank failures resulting from commercial real estate problems. He predicts that thigns will really start getting bad in 2010 and beyond, as the five-year loans that started up in 2005 go sour. That's more than Dick Bove sees and half of John Kanas. We'll be keeping score.

RealPoint has released their July CMBS delinquency report, and if one adds the surprising switch of $4.8 billion in GGP (General Growth Properties) loans which amusingly were returned to current payment status, the July delinquency total has hit a total of over $30 billion - an all time record. It seems nothing will stop the "data presenters" from trying all their best to paint as rosy a picture as they can. Alas, with GGP currently struggling through not just bankruptcy but the implications of a potential substantive consolidation, to think that there is anything that can be a long-term benefit...

The recent uptick in home sales, green shoots of new housing starts and rebounding stock market may suggest that the long-awaited turn in the U.S. economy is here. But is this daylight at the end of the tunnel or the beam of an oncoming locomotive of commercial real estate insolvency coming down the tracks on a collision course with a shaky economy? Commercial real estate (CRE), valued at $3.5 trillion in the U.S., has experienced a 39% decline in prices from the peak only two years ago, according to the MIT Center for Real Estate. This drop is greater than...

The recent uptick in home sales, green shoots of new housing starts and rebounding stock market may suggest that the long-awaited turn in the U.S. economy is here.But is this daylight at the end of the tunnel or the beam of an oncoming locomotive of commercial real estate insolvency coming down the tracks on a collision course with a shaky economy? Commercial real estate (CRE), valued at $3.5 trillion in the U.S., has experienced a 39% decline in prices from the peak only two years ago, according to the MIT Center for Real Estate. This drop is greater than the...

The markets shrugged off some weaker than expected economic news yesterday and all indices were up betweeen .75% and 1.5%. Yet, they look to be selling off most of yesterday's gains this morning. World markets were nearly all down and currently the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P alld down about one percent. Housing starts came out yesterday and showed more evidence of a phenomenon I have been speaking about. U.S. housing starts were essentially unchanged in July, as a small increase in new construction of single-family homes was offset by a large decline in multifamily units, government data showed Tuesday.

AS RECENTLY AS LAST MONTH, stories were being written about how the next shoe to drop on the economy would be in the commercial real estate sector. It did not take much of a Web search to find warnings going as far back as early 2008. The talk was that hundreds of billions of dollars of commercial mortgages would default. Yet, prices of commercial real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been soaring over the past few weeks and the technicals have not looked this good in a long time. Mr. Market does not quite agree with talking heads. While the...

<p>The $3.5 tn commercial real estate market is eroding, defaults are doubling on loans for apartment buildings, office buildings, housing complexes, strip malls, hotels, hospitals, and a staggering amount of loans must be rolled over this year into refinancings, or else go bellyup.</p>

More than 2,000 commercial properties in Maricopa County, Arizona have received 90-day foreclosure notices since the beginning of the year. In total, that represents $6.3 billion in real-estate loans. That foreclosure number is horrific. Arizona was one of the canaries in the coal mine of the housing bubble. If it’s playing that role for commercial real estate, we’re in for a lot of pain. Over the past decade the foreclosure rate has stayed around zero. Now foreclosures have skyrocketed, and local real estate brokers say they are still building momentum. Commercial-mortgage lenders are reportedly not modifying commercial-real-estate loans. But the...

About $2.2 tn of U.S. commercial properties bought or refinanced since early 2004 have gone upside down on their loans, meaning, they've fallen below the price at which they initially were sold at, Real Capital Analytics says.ased on their vintage, approximately $1.4 tn of commercial real estate mortgage loans will be maturing within the next five years, and as much as $750 bn will be maturing in less than three years, says Steven Sandler, chief executive officer of the private equity firm Crosswind Capital in Rye, NY.An estimated $165 bn to $204 bn in U.S. commercial real estate loans could...

Richard Parkus of Deutsche Bank has updated his Commercial Real Estate outlook with Q2 data. Check out how much the situation has deteriorated since the end of Q1. First, here's where things stood at the end of Q1. The lines on the chart are the percentage of loans that are delinquent, measured by length of delinquency (the black line is the average). Deutsche Bank (bearish) was looking for 3.5% average delinquency by the end of the year. . And here's where they were at June 30. Deutsche Bank is now looking for 6%-7% delinquency by the end of the year....

Is history repeating itself at Goldman Sachs? In late 2006, Goldman shrewdly began backing away from the residential mortgage market. With little fanfare, the firm began aggressively hedging its exposure to home loans, in particular mortgages to borrowers with shaky credit histories. This savvy and somewhat stealthy strategy enabled Goldman to pawn off lots of its soon-to-be toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on other institutions — forcing those foolhardy speculators to pay the price when the subprime market blew up. And much to everyone else’s chagrin, Goldman even made money off the housing meltdown when some of its hedges —...

Compliments of RealPoint, whice has provided this useful monthly report publicly, readers can enjoy for themselves the full effect of an economy shooting green on all cylinders. One can hope that RealPoint, which was recently selected for TALF rating-backstop purposes as an NRSRO, will parlay the knowledge contained herein into a fair and balanced assesment of all CMBS tranches that sellout firms S&P and Moody's undoubetdly deem to be a solid AAA+. The charts speak for themselves .

"This time it's different" The state of commercial real estate was one of the most- asked-about subjects in questioning by lawmakers so far in Bernanke’s two days of testimony on the economy. Bernanke said today in the Senate and yesterday at the House Financial Services Committee that it’s too early to tell how effective the Fed’s main initiative in the area will be. As I have pointed out repeatedly for more than two years commercial real estate tends to lag residential in economic downturns by 12-18 months in terms of severity, and sometimes as much as by two years or...

Astronauts Launch New Pro-Life TV Commercial After CNN, NBC Reject Ads Washington, DC -- A pro-life group whose first two television commercials were rejected by NBC and CNN has unveiled a new ads that promote the potential of human life. The ads feature clips of astronaut Neil Armstrong and they have the support of top astronauts Dr. Joseph Kerwin and Gene Krantz. Full story and video of new pro-life ad at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5229.html

.S. lawmakers rang alarm bells about the troubled commercial real estate industry, which has been walloped by the credit crunch and an implosion of property values. "The commercial real estate time bomb is ticking," Joint Economic Committee Chairman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in opening remarks to a hearing before her panel Thursday. U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said he was distressed about the situation the industry is facing. Banks have yanked back on lending to developers of shopping malls, apartment complexes, hotels and office parks. Meanwhile, the securitization market - a key source of funding for the commercial real...

North Korea Promotes 'healthy' Beer Click the following link to see the commerical Yahoo! version http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=14302166&ch=4226714&src=news Youtube version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g48n48rY03E

Via Deal Junkie, here's a good interview with Philip Blumberg, CEO of Blumberg Capital Partners, clarifying why, exactly, commercial real estate will prove to be such a mess for the banks. The reason, he says, they're not lending more? They know huge hits to their capital cushion are still coming, as the CRE story unfolds.

Various commercial real estate deals face trillions in refinancing obligations over the coming years. But the market is practically closed, ensuring massive bankruptcies and restructuring. Why are lenders so freaked out? Because existing loans are going sour at a pace unlike anything we've seen in history. Because of that, even commercial real estate properties with strong cash flows are finding financing extremely difficult to come by.

NEW YORK, May 28 (Reuters) - A Federal Reserve economist said on Thursday the recent stress tests of the largest U.S. banks showed they can weather the impending tidal wave of defaults expected in the commercial real estate market. "I feel comfortable that the size and portion of commercial real estate exposure was taken into account in the stress test," Til Schuermann, vide president, risk management for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told a Congressional Oversight Panel hearing in Manhattan.

Is this the first official allegation of predatory lending in the commercial real estate space? A reader passes on a recently filed lawsuit brought by a Long Island retail outlet developer against the institutions that loaned him money. Among the defendants: LaSalle Bank, Wells Fargo and Principal Life Insurance Company (uh-oh). What's amazing is how much it reads like a typical case of so-called predatory lending. The plaintiff, MASS OP LLC is swimming along with a manageable $40 million loan for his retail outlet at 5500 Sunrise Hwy in Long Island with no problem making payments. Then all of the...

Seems like nice suits.

Veridian Dynamics responds to President Obama's request for free air time for his press conference on Wednesday, April 29, 2009.

I'm looking for video of the classic McDonald's television commercial in which a father is in a swimming pool trying to get his daughter (Katy?) to jump from the side of the pool to him. He promises to catch her. She refuses. He finally bribes her with a trip to McDonald's and she jumps. If you know where the video can be found, please post a link to it or FReepmail me with the information. I need the video for a compilation piece on which I am working. I appreciate any help you can provide. I apologize for the vanity...

GENERAL GROWTH PROPERTIES (GGP) and the Great Basin Bank do not have a lot in common. One is America’s second-largest mall owner, the other a small bank in Elko, Nevada. But both shut their doors within a day of each other this month because of their exposure to commercial property, the most threatening in a line-up of suspect asset classes. GGP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 16th. Its assets, which include the Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas (pictured) and South Street Seaport in New York, are high-quality and continue to generate decent income. Its financing structure...

There is a debate beginning in Canada over whether or not to uphold a ban on a European car commercial. I would like to know the American perspective.

The Looming Crisis in Commercial Real Estate By Michael Weisskopf The bailout may be coming to your local mall. The credit crunch has thus far focused on the residential mortgage mess. But with $1.3 trillion in loans to shopping centers and other commercial properties coming due between now and 2013, another time bomb is ticking. In a report scheduled for release on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank estimates that at least half the loans — and two-thirds of those packaged and resold as securities — will not qualify for refinancing. As a result, many borrowers will likely default, leading to losses on...

Hug a tree. Recycle. But don't forget the biodegradable "green" poop bags to ensure your dog has a small carbon pawprint. Yes, Earth Day has come to this.

Hancock foreclosure may be one of many It is a scenario that seemed unthinkable as little as a year ago: Today, the John Hancock Tower will be auctioned off, the fallout of high-flying borrowing practices that are expected to trigger a wave of defaults at trophy office properties across the country. The Hancock, New England's tallest building, is being sold in New York City under a foreclosure process that began in January. Its owner, Broadway Partners, defaulted on some of the loans it had used to purchase the Back Bay skyscraper for $1.3 billion in late 2006. In the past...

Here is 2009 outlook for commercial real estate from Deutsche Bank. It does not paint a pretty picture. Run through it (it is mostly graphs). Commercial Real Estate Outlook 2009 So? What to make of it? The short answer is there is still pain hovering out there for banks if they allow these loans to default.....if. First we need to segment the commercial owners into categories. The owner who holds mortgages on a single strip mall in Des Moines vs. the REIT that hold 100 or more properties. What about the little guy who gets in trouble? Sorry bud but...

Soros Predicts 30 Percent Fall in US Commercial Real Estate Prices By Barry Wood Washington 26 March 2009 Legendary hedge fund investor George Soros said Thursday that US commercial real estate prices will fall 30 percent, a development that he says shows that the financial crisis is continuing. Soros told a Washington forum that it is inevitable that commercial property prices in the United States will fall drastically. The 78-year-old investor said the price declines will come shortly. Other experts, including analyst Christopher Whalen, agree, saying the demand for commercial property is falling rapidly while overbuilding has created a huge...

...Of course, there are some great examples of more accomplished people throughout history this commercial could have used but the video makes a great point because it sheds light on the hypocrisy of the highest ranking Democrat in the country who could and perhaps even should have been aborted if his own rationale, the twisted rationale of the left, was applied to himself after he was conceived...

Over the Top was clearly one of the great movies ever made. First and foremost, it has a plot that everyone can relate to. I mean, it feels like just yesterday that my dad won custody of me in an arm wrestling contest. Second, you have to watch the VHS promo from the 80s. It's classic and I am insisting right now that the 2012 GOP nominee use that voice over guy on EVERY commercial.

Vacancy rates in office buildings exceed 10 percent in virtually every major city across the United States and are rising rapidly, a sign of economic distress that could lead to yet another wave of problems for the beleaguered financial sector. With job cuts rampant and businesses retrenching, more empty space is expected from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles in the coming year. Rental income would then decline and property values would slide further. The Urban Land Institute predicts 2009 will be the worst year for the U.S. commercial real estate market "since the wrenching 1991-1992 industry depression." Banks...

Some of the country's biggest commercial real estate players are asking the government for help, as their $6 trillion industry of hotels, office buildings and shopping malls faces a record amount of debt coming due in the next few years. Trade association executives said that in the last few weeks they have met with members of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, Congressional leaders, and officials at the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to make their case for assistance. In the next three years, they pointed out, an estimated $530 billion of commercial mortgages will come due for refinancing -- with...

See link. Being promoted as a TV commercial. Pretty powerful.

Well, if you did not commit suicide halfway through, by now you know what boring propaganda Obama puts out. YAWN! We spice it up a bit...

I put this together, inspired by the famous 1964 LBJ commercial but updated for the present day. If you like it, spread it please. I think it makes a point.

Last night’s well-edited, technically proficient, dreary prime-time Barack Obama infomercial probably could be expanded into a five disc DVD set, complete with bonus interviews featuring more downtrodden Americans, detailed liner notes, transcripts of old law lectures, his personal revisions to the Constitution, and “never-before” seen footage of Mr. Obama healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry and personally redistributing wealth door-to-door. “Self indulgent” is far too mild a phrase to describe Obama’s thirty minute excursion into his super-ego – as I continue to hear Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” playing in my head – so I’ll just say...