Finance

Despite credit still playing hard-to-get, several REITs have recently managed to get their hands on sizable financing deals. The latest firm to add its name to the list of firms receiving funding is Federal Realty Investment Trust, which just closed a new $372 million unsecured term loan facility. Less than two weeks ago, CPN reported that H&R Real Estate Investment Trust secured C$425 million in financing to complete construction of a 58-story office tower in Downtown Calgary, Canada. The 42-month financing was provided by a syndicate of lenders led by RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities. On Tuesday, ProLogis closed…

In light of the current doldrums for both commercial and residential real estate, what’s a developer to do? Be ready for the eventual turnaround, if possible. Development is typically a multi-year activity, after all. It also helps to plan your project in an area that’s more economically resilient than many others, due to relatively high household income. This week the village council of Winnetka, Ill., an affluent northern suburb of Chicago, granted approval of a 167,800-square-foot mixed-use development downtown. Construction won’t begin for at least a year on the project’s 31 condos and 35,300 square feet of retail or other…

Is that the glimmer of good economic news ahead, or just a mirage? Time will tell, but for the moment it’s good to know that the pending home sales index rose 3.2 percent in March when compared with February, and 1.1 percent when compared with the same month a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. Not only that, the U.S Department of Commerce reported that construction outlays rose 0.3 percent in March compared with February, an uptick no one was expecting. The largest gain was in nonresidential construction, which scored a 2.7 percent increase. Public works was…

Things are looking up a little for the U.S. apartment market, if the latest quarterly survey by the National Multi Housing Council, which queried 79 CEOs and other senior executives of apartment-related firms nationwide, is any indication. That isn’t to say that conditions are strong in the multi-family rental segment–just better than in the early dark days of the Panic of 2008. The NMHC’s sales volume index, for instance, is at 30 as of April 2009, a considerable improvement from the October 2008 dismal reading of 4. A sales volume index reading above 50 means that sales volume around the…

CMBS loan delinquencies and defaults are pushing up special servicing volume at a blistering pace, according to a pair of first-quarter updates published last week by Fitch Ratings. During the first three months of 2009, the balance of loans rated by Fitch in special servicing jumped 48 percent to $23.7 billion, representing 758 loans. Imminent default was cited as the reason for 73 percent of the special-servicing transfers as measured by unpaid loan balances. That trend picked up the momentum from 2008, when specially serviced loan balances ballooned 248 percent to $16 billion. Since the end of 2007, the percentage…

At least one category of commercial real estate investment is enjoying a surge in activity, though not in pricing. Net lease transactions rose several hundred percent for all three major net lease property sectors during the first quarter compared to the last three months of 2008, according to a study by Boulder Net Lease Funds L.L.C. The number of industrial net lease properties trading in January, February and March jumped 464 percent compared to the previous quarter, an increase Boulder described as “astounding.” Perhaps more remarkable, industrial net-lease trades rebounded from a fourth quarter during which sales had hit their…

It’s no secret that for-sale multi-family properties most everywhere are moving as slowly as glaciers in the days before global warming. Not only has it been difficult simply to get financing for the purchase of a multi-family unit, but there are also other obstacles for buyers. Earlier this month, for instance, Fannie Mae added new fees to condominium loans, even for those buyers with high credit scores, and some lenders are refusing to make loans on condos that aren’t occupied by the seller. But that isn’t keeping developers and brokers from dreaming up incentives to drum some interest in their…

While many lenders are looking for any hint of poor financial health among borrowers, those looking for funds might also look under their lender’s hoods. Or so office owner and developer Thomas Properties Group discovered during a recent complex transaction. Thomas Properties and some partners completed a debt restructuring for a portfolio of office buildings in Austin, replacing a $100 million unfunded commitment from Lehman Brothers Inc. with a $60 million priority credit facility that the ownership group will use for lease-up costs and property improvements.Lehman Brothers, whose bankruptcy last September shook the financial world to its core, owned half…

It can be very difficult and expensive to obtain a construction loan for a hotel these days. But there are ways to pull them off. One is by taking advantage of the Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit.The credit is an incentive from the National Park Service that commercial builders and developers can use in redeveloping structures that are at least 50 years old or are otherwise deemed historic. This route can reduce a developer’s required equity position to around 20 percent, according to John Campo, president of Campo Architects. It can also provide access to major urban markets, Campo said,…

Office landlords have a lot on their minds these days. As companies contract, demand for space drops, and landlords are being pressured to lower rents–which no one wants to do–or increase incentives for tenants to stay, which is only a little more palatable. Sublease space, which bothered office property owners in the early 2000s, has also returned. So has shadow space. “Shadow space is definitely a reality that landlords will be forced to address in many major commercial real estate markets,” Kenneth Boyle, managing partner at Greenwich, Conn.-based Hanover Real Estate Partners, told CPN. “Current vacancy rates across the country…