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The National Association of Realtors index of pending existing home sales fell 0.7 percent nationwide to 88.9 in October. According to Bloomberg, observers had been expecting a 3 percent drop for the month, but apparently some buyers have been able to take advantage of the steep recent drops in housing prices, especially in the South, where pending sales jumped 7.8 percent, and Northeast, where they were up 0.6 percent. According to a survey of 31,800 employers nationwide by Manpower Inc., two-thirds of them plan to hold staff levels steady in the first quarter of 2009, while 16 percent plan to…

Ventas Inc. has closed eight first-mortgage loans totaling $126 million through Freddie Mac on eight senior housing communities in three states managed by Sunrise Senior Living Inc. Proceeds of the loan were used to repay in full $71 million of existing debt, secured by the same facilities that was due to mature in mid-2009.The debt, which matures in January 2019, with a possible one-year extension, is 6.5 per cent inclusive of costs, expenses and fees. The borrowers under the $126 million Freddie Mac loan are owned 85 percent by Ventas and 15 percent by Sunrise. KeyCorp Real Estate Capital Markets…

Stockmarkets in Europe and Asia rallied strongly this morning after President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a bid to drag America away from another great depression, according to The Guardian UK. CNNMoney.com reported that U.S. stock futures rose sharply this morning, too, on those same hopes along with signs that U.S. automakers would stay out of bankruptcy. CNNMoney.com reported that it looks like a deal is in the works that may keep General Motors, Ford and Chrysler out of bankruptcy court at least through the end of March. Congressional Democrats and the…

The White House has let it be known that a deal to bail out the Big Three automakers might come as soon as later today, totaling perhaps about half of what the companies were angling for as recently as last week, or $15 billion to $17 billion in bridge loans. The news may be cold comfort to the CEOs of the Big Three, since certain members of Congress–namely Sen. Christopher Dodd (D.-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee–have suggested that certain heads should roll, namely theirs. Or at least GM CEO Rick Wagoner, whom Dodd specifically mentioned as expendable on…

SL Green Realty Corp. and Gramercy Capital Corp. have announced an agreement to sell their interests in a three-building, 670,000-square-foot property in Bridgewater, N.J., for $230 million. The property is located in the Central New Jersey submarket surrounding the intersection of Interstate 287 and Route 22 near Raritan. The buyer is Chicago-based Inland American Real Estate Trust Inc. According to data tracked by Real Capital Analytics, SL Green and Gramercy bought the property with Gale Cos. in June of 2006 for $250 million. When Gale was acquired later that year, SL Green and Gramercy bought Gale out. The purchase price…

Boulder Net Lease Funds, a sponsor of private equity funds investing solely in net leased properties, is on the hunt for a partner for a new joint venture that will focus on single-tenant, net leased office and industrial properties. Northbrook, Ill.-based Boulder has already completed a pair of previous joint ventures, one with Greenfield Partners and another with ORIX Real Estate Capital. “…[C]urrent dynamics within the office and industrial net leased real estate market will create compelling investment opportunities,” noted Boulder president Randy Blankstein, in a release. “We intend to continue out focus on acquiring single tenant properties offering opportunistic…

Ontario-based Brookfield Investments Corp. has sold 15 percent of its interest in The Canary Wharf Group, to Brookfield Europe L.P. The sale is actually a transfer of assets from one subsidiary to another, and part of a much larger merger process. Brookfield Investments, which was formerly Brascade Corp., is an investment company with investments primarily in the forest products and property sectors. The company is owned by Brookfield Asset Management, based in Ontario Canada.Sachin Shah, CFO at Brookfield, told CPN, “This is an integral step for Brookfield Asset Management in consolidating its European operating platform.”The Canary Wharf Group, or CWG,…

Another round of reports come out today and the news continues to look ominous. U.S. non-farm payrolls data for November is set for release this morning and economists in a Reuters survey forecast 340,000 jobs were lost in the month, compared with a loss of 240,000 jobs in October, according to a Reuters report. On Thursday, major companies, including AT&T and DuPont announced more than 20,000 job cuts, CNNMoney.com reported. Car rental company Avis Budget Group Inc. cut more than 2,200 jobs and taken other steps to meet its goal of reducing annual costs by $150 million to $200 million…

The magnitude of the unemployment numbers–533,000 jobs evaporated in November, according to the Department of Labor–took economists and analysts by surprise this morning. A Reuters survey of such observers had predicted a loss of 340,000 jobs for the month. It’s the highest monthly total since 1974. The current unemployment rate, after figuring in the latest surge of job losses, is now 6.5 percent, the highest since 1993. Some calculations put the “real” unemployment rate much higher, perhaps twice as much, by including able-bodied adults who are so discouraged that they’ve giving up on finding work and are presumably spending their…

One Enterprise Center, a 319,000-square-foot, 22-story Class A office building at 225 Water St. in Downtown Jacksonville, Fla., has been sold for $51.4 million. The seller, One Enterprise Financial Associates L.L.C., and Sendar Jacksonville L.L.C.–both entities controlled by Harbor Group International L.L.C.–was represented by CB Richard Ellis Inc.’s New York institutional group and Jacksonville office. The sale includes the assumption of $41.6 million in debt from Wachovia. The property, also known as Wachovia Tower, had been purchased by Harbor Group in January 2004 for $38.3 million. “We are pleased with the performance of Wachovia Tower and feel we added a…