Changes to the Fed’s TALF program, specificallly opening the program up to Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS)and extending the loan term life to 5 years (up from 1 to 3) seem to have unfrozen parts of the credit market. However the Banking Stress-Test seems to have identified significant banking system exposure from commercial real estate loans.
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TALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility), primarily sponsored by the Federal Reserve, is the new bailout plan that involves printing $800 billion in money to save the Asset Backed Securities market. However, so far Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities are not part of the plan, and that’s a problem.
Continue reading about Is the TARP is Dead? Will the TALF and P-PIP Live Long Enough to Help CMBS?
General Growth Properties filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at a time when net operating profits are increasing and occupancy at their properties is at an all time high. Is this the first shoe to drop in the commercial real estate market reorganization?
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The problem of securitization of mortgages (so called toxic securities) is still a significant issue for both residential and commercial real estate markets. The current freezing of the credit markets can be traced to the securitization of mortgages (both commercial and residential) whose securities received higher credit ratings than they should have. When the mortgage default rate of the securities increased from the normal 0.5% to just under 20% for the so-called sub-prime group, the market value of the securities significantly dropped.
This drop in market value for some mortgage backed securities has lead to catastrophic situation for Lehman Brothers as well as other financial institutions. How these situations were created and what we can do about it was a topic of the National Association of Realtor’s Annual Meeting in Orlando during the first week in November, 2008. This article was originally written to be distributed to members of Central Oklahoma’s Realtors® Commercial Alliance.
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Tronox Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as the best way to address contingent environmental liabilities inheriated from its spin-off from Kerr McGee (which has since been purchased by Anadarko Petroleum)
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On Sunday (September 7, 2008), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) exercised its authority and placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a conservatorship. The big question to be answered is how restrictive will the new loan policies that will inevitabely be implemented be?
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Studies suggest that a region’s cost of labor is the second most important factor in sight selection, highway accessibility was first and Energy Availability and Cost was third. Both the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Commerce provide data to help determine labor costs. However other local factors also need to be included.
Devon Energy recently unvailed plans for their new $750 million, 1.9 million square feet headquarters building, containing 54-story, 925-foot high office tower, 10 story parking garage, six story atrium, and public parks with water features. The project has been registered with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) program and is aiming for LEED certification.
An Intermodal Transportation Center can be defined as a terminal where the movement of passengers or freight from one mode of transport to another takes place. For Oklahoma City to take advantage of its central location, it will need to upgrade its transportation infrastructure. In 2005, for railroads, intermodal freight (shipping containers and trailers by multiple transportation modes) constituted a bit more that 6% of total tonnage, and provided almost 15% of revenue. Growth of intermodal freight has been just under 11% per year for the past 10 years, from 48 million tons in 1994 to 120 million tons in 2004. Intermodal freight volume has increased in 22 of the past 25 years and has passed coal as the greatest revenue maker for railroads.
If you are contemplating the purchase of a property containing service stations, dry cleaners, truck stops, or almost any industrial company, these properties may contain potentially hazardous materials. If you are not responsible for placing the hazardous materials on the property, the following describes federal and Oklahoma State programs that may help in the rehabilitation of the property. Some of the programs require a public-private partnership, other programs are available to for-profit enterprises. In almost all cases, governmental assistance is only available to clean up poluted property if you have preformed an All Appropriate Inquiry or Phase I Environmental Assessments before you purchased the property.
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