Finance

Various tax holidays got under way over the Memorial Day weekend, or will get under way shortly, possibly giving a nudge to retail sales in some places. In Texas, for example, Memorial Day weekend was the second annual Energy Star sales tax holiday, with certain Energy Star rated appliances qualifying for tax-free status, such as air conditioners, refrigerators, ceiling fans, light bulbs, clothes washers and dishwashers. In Virginia, the Hurricane Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday begins May 25 and runs to May 31. During that period, there will be no state or local taxes on a variety of items associated with…

The special-purpose entity structure that has helped to power real estate finance in recent years remains intact after recent court decisions tied to the General Growth Properties Inc. Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. However, the rulings may turn out to be less than a total victory for bondholders in the long run. In a research note published Thursday, Fitch Ratings argues that the cost of defending bondholders’ positions will take a toll on subordinate bonds and limit the control over the process usually enjoyed by special servicers. “Positions taken by GGP to date lead Fitch to believe that certain CMBS bondholder…

Plenty of investors are preparing to benefit from the coming wave of distressed asset sales, but net lease investors are not unanimously enthusiastic about the prospects. As net lease investors weigh whether to adopt an opportunistic approach, some veteran players are sticking to longtime conservative strategies. In that debate, AEI Capital Corp., a 39-year-old firm specializing in net-lease retail assets, makes the case for buying only successful stores tenanted by proven national brands.“Over the last couple of years, people lost track of the basics,” contended George Rerat, vice president of acquisitions. Net lease specialists, like many other investors, often failed…

A bright spot to kick off the Memorial Day holiday weekend, or economic fool’s gold? Time will tell, but in any case the Conference Board reported on Thursday that leading indicators of the U.S. economy posted their first rise since the summer of last year. The organization’s index of leading indicators, which is designed to predict economic activity six- to nine months in the future, rose 1 percent in April. The revised March figure was a 0.2 percent drop. Generally speaking, the index has been falling since late 2007, but according to the organization, the rate of decline has slowed…

Commercial real estate has had that sinking feeling all year so far, and on Wednesday the National Association of Realtors quantified things: brokerage activity in the commercial sector dropped 4.8 percent in 1Q09 compared with 4Q08. Compared with the first quarter of 2008, brokerage activity is down 12.9 percent. Moreover, the NAR is predicting down time for a while yet, since real estate is a lagging indicator behind a broader economy that’s still lagging itself. “Because commercial real estate always lags an overall economic recovery, it will take some time for the commercial real estate market to rebound,” said Lawrence…

In a major expansion of the Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that investors will be able to buy existing securities backed by commercial real estate loans–so-called “legacy” CMBS. The commercial real estate industry has been pushing for this for some time, and it will at last be possible starting in July. The crash of the CMBS market has created a very large storm on the horizon for commercial real estate, formed by loans that will need to be refinanced in the coming months and years with no way to do so, even…

SL Green Realty Corp. has jumped on the bandwagon of REITs that, facing credit markets that are frozen like a block of ice, have opted to raise funds through public offerings. The company, which is still New York City’s largest office landlord, just walked away with net proceeds of approximately $387.4 million after selling 19.55 million shares of common stock. SL Green’s shares were offered at $20.75 each, representing quite a premium over the company’s lowest share price of $7.75 within the last 12 months, but a far cry from the high point of $101.07 during that period. No commercial…

“Better than expected” is the latest turn of phrase commonly used to describe lousy performance by companies that isn’t quite as lousy as analysts predicted, and as such the phrase might have a longer shelf-life than “green shoots.” Since lousy is the new normal, then “better than expected” is what Wall Street now rewards. Few industries have a more lousy new normal than retail. Take the do-it-yourself chain Lowe’s Cos., for example. DIY is a retail subset that took it particularly hard even before the Panic of 2008 last fall, since it’s a business that develops pneumonia whenever the housing…

Hard times may have come to property development and construction, but that doesn’t mean that green building ideas have lost all of their momentum, in either public or private spheres. In public development, which includes examples of early adopters of green building techniques in the first place, various governments are still pushing hard for green. Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2187, also called the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act, by a vote of 255 to 177. H.R. 2187 is a $6.4 billion school modernization bill with the specific goal of building new…

First-quarter numbers are in from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and they show that the retail giant continues to attract recession-weary U.S. consumers, but other factors beyond its control have been keeping the retail behemoth from posting higher profits. According to the company, profit in its first fiscal quarter, which ended April 30, was about the same as a year earlier, $3.02 billion, or 77 cents a share. Not shabby, but not what Wall Street expected. The main drag on company profits was the fact that sales internationally were down 11 percent during the first quarter, affected by that curiously strong U.S….