Allison Landa
Morgan Stanley Gives $110M Boost to Hard-Hit Affordable Housing Market
Morgan Stanley has given a $110M boost to Chicago-based Low Income Tax Credit syndicator National Equity Funds Inc. in order to inject necessary funding into low-income multifamily projects across the nation.
Economy Watch – Consumers a Little Less Fidgety
Consumers less pessimistic, but Case-Shiller indices show home prices down in 16 of the 20 major markets covered. Also, consolidation may be a wave of the CRE future.
JLL Report: Cautious Optimism for 2010
The firm’s January Global Market Perspective contends that we have reached or are near the bottom — but that a slow recovery is at hand.
KDC, Digital Realty Join Forces
The combined companies hope to offer a unique turnkey solution for owners and developers of data centers.
Economy Watch – A Floor for Residential Real Estate?
Some badly shaken markets are going from very bad to less bad, bolstering the idea that residential real estate has hit bottom. However, banks are still being shut down — perhaps even at last year’s pace.
Economy Watch: Fools-A-Plenty
The greater fool in the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper debacle? Time will tell. Meanwhile, sales figures may or may not bloom in spring, and the banks are still feeling the pain of CRE debt.
Finance: Still Paralyzed
For approximately 12 months, conventional wisdom has suggested that the wide bid-ask separation between sellers and investors would soon disappear and transaction activity would significantly increase at a lower pricing point. Continued deterioration of fundamentals as evidenced by a steadily increasing CMBS delinquency rate (now at 2.1%) would seem to support this forecast. But, as if defying gravity, transactional activity remains stagnant with capital ready to invest but not enough sellers willing to sell at price points required by investors. There seems to be several explanations for this continued paralysis. Existing assets (equity and debt) are generally held by…
Business Management: Words of Wisdom
Here are some words of wisdom from a mortgage banker who has been through the cycles before. They hold truths for everyone in the real estate business, not just mortgage bankers. Whether you have been through tough times or not, you will get something out of these suggestions. 1. Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Pick it up and set up meetings. 2. Stay close to your lenders. 3. Chase relationships not deals. 4. Find the new buyers. 5. Be responsive. 6. Be an expert and know what you can get done. 7. Don’t get down. And if…
Economy: We Forgot About Risk…Again!
I recently attended a conference where a speaker offered his theory for the cause and severity of the current financial meltdown. He said, “The ‘fuel’ for the downturn was a huge savings glut that required investment and the “oxygen” was a systemic ignorance of risk.” This is not a new story, but the size, scope and number of businesses and asset classes impacted has been far greater than previous ones. Margins and returns were razor thin and 30-1 leverage was utilized by some for purchase of assets. Investment decisions were based on the notion that values had almost no…
Finance: Musical Chairs – Managing and Matching Debt to Real Estate
Where were you when the music stopped? More hard lessons are being learned every day in our industry about the risk of high leverage short term debt. As tempting as it is in good times to leverage development and acquisition activity with short term lines and other high leverage debt, the price can be very high in a downturn. Commercial real estate and short term exit/finance strategies are not a good match. NorthMarq Capital’s mortgage servicing portfolio of $37 billion is comprised largely of fixed rate transaction based financing with staggered maturities. Even our shorter term financings that we…
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