Just as commercial real estate is starting to recover… Congress plans to drive a stake through its heart and raise income taxes from 15% capital gains rate to 35% ordinary income rate. Tell your U.S. Senators about the unintended consequences associated with the carried interest proposal. Please call 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to [...]
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With Little Quality Office Product in Play, Investors Vying Sharply for Low Hanging Fruit By Mark Heschmeyer Last year, capitalization rates on large office property sales rocketed from the mid-6 range to the mid-8 range. So far this year, cap rates have reversed course, falling back just as rapidly to mid-7 range. Under ‘normal’ conditions, [...]
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By Christopher Hosford Student housing has come a long way from the bleak dorms of bygone days, or the meager off-campus options that were little better. Today, in many cases, student housing rivals market-rate spa communities in their array of amenities and cutting-edge style. Further, they enjoy generally strong overall occupancy and the prospect of [...]
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The Apartment Finance Today conference was a great opportunity to share ideas with the best and brightest in the multi-family investment, development and finance industry. The final session of the conference was a panel with three economists focused on answering the key question on everyone’s mind: What are the best & worst nationwide markets for [...]
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I am back from moderating an all-star panel discussion at the Apartment Finance Today Conference in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Our topic: “Small but Mighty: Finding the Best Small-Balance Apartment Loan” was well received by a full house of real estate investors and developers. As sources of capital are becoming harder to find our panel of [...]
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And you learn that Hometown Democracy shifts many of the planning and zoning decisions from professionals that have spent a career working through the critical issues to all the voters. America was not founded as a Democracy with majority rule but as a Republic in which elected officials are selected by the people to study [...]
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Not really. While there is frothy excitement in social media circles that Warren Buffet’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is mentioned in the same sentence as “distressed real estate” his firm is a special servicer, not a buyer of distressed real estate. One of his holdings, Berkadia, has a portfolio of $240 billion and is [...]
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Follow this link to view an inspirational 4-minute interview with Barry Sternlicht, the founder of Starwood Capital, to learn what motivated a then 31-year old unemployed young man to take the leap of faith and start his own business. From humble beginnings his 3-man start-up went on to become the world’s largest owner of hotels. [...]
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Earlier this year, commercial real estate had all the hallmarks of a distressed asset sale of the millennium. Across America, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of office buildings, hotels, apartment complexes and malls were tanked up with debt and rapidly tanking in value. They were so far under water, conventional wisdom had it, that [...]
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I’m not so much concerned about the return on my money as the return of my money. – Will Rogers, 1933 Billionaire Bill Gross of PIMCO makes the case for an alternative to money market accounts in his December newsletter. With interest earned on money markets and bank accounts in the range of 1 to [...]
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