In the latest issue of Apartment Finance Today, Robert White of Real Capital Analytics echoes my comments from previous blogs. In an article titled, “Roundtable remains bullish on Apartments”, Mr. White states that the credit crunch has lasted longer than expected and that the recovery process in the debt markets has yet to get started. Mr. [...]

Q         Why would you use Yield Maintenance or Defeasance?
A         To unencumber the underlying real estate asset.
Q         How does the process work?
A         Either course of action provides the same intended result; allow CMBS bondholders to realize the same yield as if the original loan ran it’s course to maturity.
Q         So what’s the difference between Yield [...]

I received this “Quick Market Update” form Wells Fargo and thought it worth sharing qmu-13jun08.pdf .
How quickly the focus changes in just one week. Last week the focus was Growth, this week Inflation.  The media is chasing it’s own tail! In a nutshell, the last paragraph sums up the basics of all investment strategies; Diversify, Manage [...]

I had the privilege to once again lead the Marketing Session (mentored by Pete Chrzaszcz “Shunz”). The  Bid/Ask Gap between sellers expectations and buyers willingness to pay continues to WIDEN!  Some sophisticated investors are in disbelief at the deterioration of their property values. As always, we discussed how to uncover hidden values that might otherwise been overlooked. Numerous [...]

Discussions with my peers led to the topic of foreclosures and the amount of available units that will come to market because of “single family deals” being purchased by commercial real estate investors. The concensus was that the “high rent” apartment dwellers would prefer renting a single family house over an apartment.  Also in this “high [...]

The following extract focuses on the East Bay exclusively. (I inserted my comments in parenthesis)
* East Bay unemployment declined, falling to 5.2 percent from 5.5 percent in March (Always good for the local economy)
* Construction, finance and manufacturing payrolls continued to post larger-than-average monthly and yearly decreases (Not good, fewer dollars available in our local economy)
* Median [...]

I took the liberty of condensing the speech…
The Sources of Financial Turmoil: US Housing Boom,  Credit Boom and Growth in Emerging market economies. The Credit Boom is where lenders and investors aggressively sought out opportunities to take credit risks even as market risk premiums contracted. This led to “risk taking and reaching for yield” by [...]

Much was learned by chatting with other brokers- most notably the gap between seller’s expectations and buyer’s willingness to pay is widening still!
The guest speaker was Richard Knutson of Premier Apartment Advisors. Richard shared his insights with the group- no significant updates from last month’s message.  Richard indicated that entitled land for Single Family Residences is [...]