Finance

The U.S. commercial real estate market turned in the worst performance on record in 2009, posting a return of -17.1 percent for the year, according to results of IPD’s first U.S. annual index. IPD unveiled the findings and the index during a presentation Tuesday morning in Midtown Manhattan.

Housing starts nationwide stumbled in February according to the U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday. Some observers cited the weather for the decline, but the relentless drumbeats of unemployment, tight credit and foreclosures were probably also factors.

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd on Monday put forth a dramatic – and at 1,336 pages, lengthy – bill to overhaul financial regulations.

A study by the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California has found that an increasing number of immigrants to the United States are moving to places other than the standard gateway cities of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Instead many of these new Americans are favoring smaller cities where the cost of living is lower and jobs are easier to come by.

The good news: According to Fitch ratings, CMBS special servicers are making tracks through distressed loans and resolved approximately $8.7 billion in 2009. The bad news: There’s a long way to go.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported on Friday that retail sales nationwide edged up 0.3 percent between February and January, despite the snowstorms that kept a lot of people in the East home for more days than usual this winter, though perhaps there was an element of hoard-buying ahead of the storms.

In its latest Foreclosure Market Report, RealtyTrac noted on Thursday that default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions occurred on a little more than 308,500 residential properties nationwide in February. That’s 6 percent more than February 2009, but 2 percent fewer than in January 2010.

All is not exactly lost for the real estate market, according to Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman. In a capital markets update on Wednesday, the firm reports that there is capital coming into real estate, with lenders and equity investors reporting greater desire and capacity to put money to work.

More states than not saw unemployment rates increases between January and February 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics–30 in all, as well as the District of Columbia, while nine states saw decreases and 11 recorded no change. That’s the bad news.