From the monthly archives:

May 2009

Non-Traded REITs Are Designed to be Sold, Not Bought

May 26, 2009
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There is no real estate investment I would work more diligently to avoid than a non-traded REIT. They routinely pay dividends using money from new investors peter or paul? and one of them, Wells Timberland REIT, doesn’t even qualify as a REIT. So what gives? It’s pretty simple: your friendly neighborhood broker is paid handsomely […]

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FDIC Loan Sales – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

May 18, 2009

Last week, Zero Hedge attempted to make a tortuous connection between the sales prices of “performing” commercial real estate loans being sold by the FDIC and the book value of performing CRE loans held by healthy financial firms – presumably the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Aside from creating […]

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Commercial Real Estate Loan Originations Show Continued Deterioration in CRE

May 15, 2009

The Mortgage Bankers Association has released their quarterly survey of commercial/multi-family loan originations, and it shows continued dramatic deterioration in all CRE lending sectors, including an 80% plunge in bank lending. Earlier this week, I wrote that commercial real estate transaction volume had declined to practically zero, so it’s no surprise that loan originations would […]

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BMO Upgrades U.S. REIT Sector

May 11, 2009

BMO Capital Markets upgraded the U.S. real estate investment trust industry to “outperform” from “market perform” today, and said it believes REITs are at or nearing a turning point. “We are raising our sector rating … based on early signs of economic recovery, the competitively advantaged position of the REITs vis-a-vis the broader real estate […]

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Commercial Real Estate Investors Brace For Pivotal 4th Quarter

May 11, 2009

REIT earnings season got into full swing last week, but there’s a lot more on investor’s minds these days that last quarter’s earnings. Transaction volume has continued to plunge, and CMBS loans placed in special servicing have continued to rise like a poodle in a jetpack. This can mean only one thing, and in the […]

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