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The apartment market has softened modestly, but fundamentals remain generally healthy owing to restrained rental construction in recent years, rising residential foreclosure activity and strict home mortgage underwriting. While the return of failed conversion projects to apartment inventory, along with for-rent condominiums and houses, will remain a source of competition for multi-family owners, particularly in the Class A segment, the expanding renter pool has been almost sufficient to counteract the impact on overall vacancy rates.The Class B/C market will remain the least affected by the economic downturn, as many households will continue to be forced to seek more affordable housing…

Employment forms a key driver for the apartment sector, as job growth leads to household formation. News on that front, however, continues to be bad, as the United States has experienced nine straight months of job declines. And according to the U.S. Labor Department, unemployment reached 6.5 percent in October, the highest in 14 years.In a recent Webcast on the U.S. apartment market and the outlook for the U.S. economy, Hessam Nadji, managing director of research services for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services Inc., noted that significant job losses are likely to continue into the first quarter of…

According to the National Multi Housing Council’s Information Technology Investment Banking Survey, respondents reported that they shell out just 0.7 percent of their gross revenue on IT, excluding telecommunications services at the property level. Of that 0.7 percent, however, almost 20 percent is allotted to consultants. Respondents appear to be similarly interested in discretionary projects aimed at bolstering revenue, as 19 percent is spent on such initiatives. Interestingly enough, those surveyed spend 12.6 percent on outsourcing. However, Dave Cardwell, vice president of technology and capital markets for the National Multi Housing Council, contended that the apartment sector has embraced technology…

Chicago-based Harrison Street Real Estate Capital L.L.C. has acquired a portfolio of 19 self-storage facilities across six states. The buyer was described only as “a national lending institution,” and the purchase price was not disclosed. The deal, according to Harrison Street, positions the company in the top 15 owners of self-storage assets nationally, by giving it a total of more than 4.6 million square in 65 properties across 17 states and valued at well over $600 million. Christopher Merrill, Harrison Street co-founder & managing director, told CPN that although the self-storage business is competitive, and no asset class is truly…

A billion here, a billion there: pretty soon it adds up to real money, such as the $800 billion the Federal Reserve has committed to unclog the credit markets for homebuyers, small businesses and consumers. It’s a new multi-part initiative involving the purchase of about $500 billion of mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, and $100 billion of debt issued by those entities as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks. The Fed is also setting up a $200 billion facility to support consumer finance, with the goal of making student, auto and Small Business…

Fluor Corp., a global construction and engineering firm, has revealed plans to relocate its United Kingdom headquarters to a SEGRO-owned business park, IQ Farnborough, in Hamphshire, England.SEGRO, a U.K. REIT, said the prelease for 210,000 square feet could be the largest this year in the U.K.’s South East office market and possibly the largest in the Thames Valley since 2001. Financial terms of the deal were not made public. The plan calls for Fluor, based in Irving, Texas, to take a total of 210,000 square feet in four buildings to be constructed at the business park. Fluor will own one…

The instability of the capital markets is proving to be a considerable hindrance to the commercial real estate market, forcing several major players to conjure ways to alleviate bottom-line woes. The latest evidence of companies that have run into financial trouble surfaced just a few days ago, when retail REIT General Growth Properties Inc. reportedly confirmed that it has retained law firm Sidley Austin L.L.P. as bankruptcy counsel, amid a time when the company is struggling to restructure about $27 billion in debt. The hire does not indicate that a Chapter 11 filing is looming, however, since financially distressed firms…

As the drive toward sustainable buildings picks up speed in commercial real estate, executives appear to be mostly unfazed by the hurdles to going green. That trend emerged last week in a variety of studies released in conjunction with GreenBuild, the national conference in Boston organized by the U.S. Green Building Council. The group sponsors the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, the best-known certification series for sustainable buildings in the United States. In a poll of 754 executives published Nov. 18 by Turner Construction Co., 83 percent of respondents described themselves as “extremely likely” or “very likely” to…

President-elect Barack Obama plans to name his new economic leadership team today triggering oil prices to rise above $50 a barrel Monday in Asia, according to the Associated Press. Monthly home sales data is also slated for a release today, but stock futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street today, too, after a sharp rally late on Friday and following a U.S. government plan to rescue embattled Citigroup, Reuters reported. Late on Sunday, the U.S. government unveiled a bailout plan for Citigroup Inc, agreeing to shoulder most of the potential losses on $306 billion of high risk assets,…

At around noon Eastern Time, President-elect Barack Obama made it official: Timothy Geithner will be U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Lawrence Summers will be director of the National Economic Council. Interestingly, neither man has ever worked in a major capacity for a Wall Street bank, as have many previous shapers of U.S. economic policy, though Geithner has been an important liaison between the banking industry and the government as head of the New York branch of the Fed. Word is the new crew is already working with current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the old crew to forge a…