All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Where are you located and where is this piece of dirt located?

Short list of Brokerage companies with Nat'l reputation:

CBRE
Grubb & Ellis
Lee & Associates
NAI Global

There are many out there. My advice is to go look and see for yourself which brokerage firm occupies your area and represents the retail market in your immediate area.

They tend to be territorial which makes it nice and takes the guess work out of whose working the area the most efficiently.

Good luck.

I'm not big into blogs. I am however big into e-mail type submissions from a credible source that I deem worth my time. ICSC has a great e-mail called "ICSC Smart-brief"

I give it a two thumbs up!

~Blake

I propose that posts/threads be more centered on factual evidence in attempt/purpose of providing tangible material that educates us as members.

Comparing our situation to Donald Trump and wishing for golden spoons is a waste of thread and time. Let's be more centered on development and the growth of our "higher learning". Not that I dont enjoy small chat or find myself dreaming every once in a while; just not here.

P.S. wikipedia is a great option for answers Philip Lilavois

Thank you.

BUMP

I'm interested in more sources for broadening my understanding of the marketplace.

I'm becoming more familiar with CoStar as well as obtaining what I can from the Census bureau. Do you guys know of any other good sources out there that I am missing. Are there any other forums other than this one that speaks directly to developers, specifically in the retail market?

I've been slowly involved with ICSC but certain there are more sources available, even online.

Thank you.

As some of you may, or may have not heard, the Fed has extended the TALF program til June 30th of next year.

Here's the meat and taters of it.

The Federal Reserve extended by three to six months an emergency program aimed at restarting credit markets, a move that may cushion the commercial real- estate industry from rising defaults and falling prices.

The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, with a capacity of as much as $1 trillion, will expire June 30 for newly issued commercial mortgage-backed securities, instead of Dec. 31, the Fed and U.S. Treasury said today in a statement in Washington. For other asset-backed securities and CMBS sold before Jan. 1, the plan was extended three months to March 31.

Commercial property values have fallen 35 percent since peaking in October 2007, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The extension may help firms such as Vornado Realty Trust, which is considering the sale of commercial MBS through the TALF. Almost $165 billion of mortgages for skyscrapers, shopping malls and hotels are due this year.

While financial-market conditions “have improved considerably in recent months,†the markets for ABS and CMBS “are still impaired and seem likely to remain so for some time,†the Fed and Treasury said.

The central bank said it doesn’t intend to make other types of collateral eligible for the program, indicating officials rejected adding residential mortgage-backed securities after considering such a move for several months. The Fed didn’t rule out a future expansion.

Door Open

Policy makers also left the door open to prolonging the program beyond the new expiration dates, saying they “will consider in the future whether unusual and exigent circumstances warrant a further extension.â€

While extending the TALF, the Fed is trimming or ending other emergency programs. Last week, officials decided to phase out their $300 billion of Treasury-bond purchases through the end of October. The Fed has reduced sales of Term Auction Facility loans to commercial banks by one-third and is letting a money-market lending program end in October.

In June, the Fed extended other emergency-loan programs by three months to Feb. 1.

“The Fed realizes that the markets are getting better but are not yet healthy enough to stand on their own,†said Scott Buchta, a Chicago-based strategist at Guggenheim Capital Markets LLC. The June extension for new CMBS “shows that they feel that market may take a bit longer to get up and running again,†Buchta said.

To read the rest of the story, check it out compliments of Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aR9YyVp0u16Y

Time to keep a look out and be mindful of the following article written by the ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers)

ICSC is trying to ensure that accounting rules governing the way retailers report their lease obligations to investors do not get rewritten in ways that could harm the shopping center industry.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sets U.S. accounting rules, and its international peer, the International Accounting Standards Board, are ready to change those rules. The current U.S. leasing standards, established in 1976, allow companies to report many leases as operating leases without including them on balance sheets. This method fails to apprise investors of the true financial commitments represented by the leases, critics say. In a June 2005 report to Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission estimated that current rules allow companies to keep about $1.25 trillion in future cash obligations off-balance-sheet. The SEC asked the FASB to require that both landlords and tenants report their economic interest in leased assets, in addition to assets and liabilities related to the lease payments.

ICSC is asking the agencies to exclude shopping center leases and handle them separately. The association is also asking that certain short-term leases be excluded from the standard, such as those that have terms of a year or less and that do not have a material effect on financial statements.

“On the landlord side, boards are proposing to treat every lease following one of two alternatives: a usage model and a financing model,†said Joe Sebik, a lease-accounting specialist and an accounting adviser to ICSC. “Under the usage model, they [are] proposing that the present value of rents be recorded as a lease receivable — either a liability or a deferred revenue — separate and apart from the actual real estate. The capitalized leases would be in addition to the real estate already recorded.â€

If these rules are instituted, the results would not reflect the true economic model of a tenant-landlord relationship, Sebik says. “It would also potentially be double-counting the same value,†he said. “With the financing model, every lease would be treated as if [the landlord] sold the rights to use that portion of the mall, and the only income recognized would be financing income. The problem is, there’s no relationship to the true tenant-landlord relationship. Individual stores don’t have residual values per se. So ICSC is recommending that things essentially be kept the way they are, [where leased space] is treated as an operating lease of the mall, which is investment property.â€

The accounting agencies are expected to issue a preliminary standard next year and the final rule the year after, followed by implementation in 2013.

Hypothetically speaking, if Nationalized Health care passes under the current administration, how will this affect the Insurance companies lending?

Without money going into into health insurance companies, won't that mean less money going out to commercial developers/investors? Can't this potentially have an enormous affect on commercial lending/investing.

Food for thought. Comments and opinions always appreciated.

Check with your local bank and local SBA (Small Business Administration) Although there are much more regulations and hoops, it could be an option for you. Without knowing the specifics of your deal, there is a 504 deal going on.

How the 504 deal racks up:

Bank puts up 50% of the LTV and the SBA will put up 40%. Borrower puts up the remaining 10%. The cap is 10 mil.

Thank you Corey. I appreciate the good review. I'm not a member of ICSC but was able to find some "hand-me-down" books on amazon from the ICSC's site bookstore. I think that'll be a good place for me to start. Are there any events you would recommend more so than others?