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Economy Watch: Gradual Mend for CRE, Says NAR
The National Association of Realtors says that U.S. office vacancy rates will peak at 16.7 percent during the fourth quarter and start a gradual decline after that. The markets with the lowest office vacancy rates currently are New York City and Honolulu, with vacancies around 9 percent.
Economy Watch: Holiday Sales More Robust This Year?
The National Retail Foundation notes that things are looking up for retailers: This year’s Black Friday sales jumped 8.7 percent from 2009, including both bricks-and-mortar as well as online stores.
Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II Buys 45,000-SF North Carolina MOB
Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II is actively looking to raise as much as $3 billion in equity in order to bolster its property portfolio.
Economy Watch: CRE Values Spike in September
Moody’s Investors Services said on Monday that U.S. commercial property prices spiked upward 4.3 percent in September, up from an eight-year low in August.
Economy Watch: Bernanke Says Full Speed Ahead with QE2
At the Sixth European Central Bank Central Banking Conference in Frankfurt, Germany, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in ever-polite central bankese, told QE2 critics to go fly a kite.
Colliers’ “Global Property Clock”: Global Prospects Improved for 2011, Yet Guarded
Investors around the world like their chances of escaping a double-dip recession, but otherwise expectations for 2011 range all over the map, according to a new Colliers International report.
PwC Leases 209,000 SF in Long-Vacant Silicon Valley Office Building
Dust away the cobwebs at the Sobrato Building in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose. PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P., or PwC US, has staked a claim to more than half of the 380,000-square-foot office tower, which has sat vacant since its 2002 completion.
Economy Watch: Residential Mortgage Delinquencies Edge Down
The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on housing of four or fewer units stood at 9.13 percent at the end of September, according to the latest survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s a decline of 72 basis points from the previous quarter.
$80M Charleston Place Loan One of This Year’s Largest Single-Asset Financings
According to real estate investment banking firm Sonnenblick-Eichner Co., which orchestrated the loan on behalf of Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., the deal marks one of the largest single asset bank financings for a hotel property year to date.
Economy Watch: Multi-Family Housing Starts Slide Most in October
According to the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, U.S. housing starts in October dropped by a precipitous 11.7 percent compared with September. The October annualized rate was 519,000 units, down from the revised September figure of 588,000 units.