by ilene - November 17th, 2010 4:02 pm
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Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Commercial real estate is in a structural cliff-dive, currently in slow-motion but soon to gather momentum.
With all the hub-bub about the foreclosure crisis in residential real estate, commercial real estate (CRE) has fallen off the radar screen of crises. Don’t worry, it’s still careening off the cliff; the fall is just in slow motion.
No need for a fancy report to see the signs of decay in CRE. Signs of the ongoing CRE meltdown are everywhere--empty storefronts, mall shops and vacant office complexes abound.
The causes are all too familiar: lending standards went out the window, banks loaned too much, buyers paid too much, lousy deals were avidly securitized, cash flow projections entered Fantasyland and unhealthy speculation fed widespread fraud.
Since boom-and-bust cycles of overbuilding and retrenchment are endemic to commercial real estate, it’s tempting to view this as just another post-expansion trough. Since prices have already slipped a staggering 40% from the 2006 peak, those calling this the bottom of the current cycle have some history on their side.
But beneath what appears to be a standard-issue retrenchment--a glut of inventory to work through, lenders avoiding risk instead of embracing it, and so on--structural changes in the U.S. economy are changing the CRE landscape for good--and not in a positive direction.
A long-term structural decline in CRE is not just a real estate industry concern. With some $1.7 trillion in CRE loans needing to be refinanced in the next few years, a continuing decline in CRE values could push the still-fragile banking system into a new crisis and the economy back into recession as early as next year.
The extremes reached in the boom were certainly epic: investors paid $800,000 per resort hotel room and over $500 per square foot for Class A office space, numbers which no terrestrial cash flow could possibly justify. Retail centers sprouted alongside every new exurb subdivision.
By this logic, an unprecedented boom requires an equally unprecedented bust to work through the excesses in price, debt and risk. So far so good, but there is an anecdotal body of evidence which suggests that profound systemic changes are taking place in the U.S. economy which will structurally reduce the demand for commercial real estate--not for a few years, but permanently.
1. A significant portion of CRE…
Tags: Banks, Ben Bernanke, Commercial Real Estate, CRE, debt, Dollar, Economy, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, government, hotels, Housing, Recession, retailers, stores, unemployment, vacancies, Wall Street
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by ilene - February 2nd, 2010 9:08 am
Courtesy of Mish
While the incessant drumbeat that "banks aren’t lending" continues, the real story once again is that demand for loans continues to drop. Please consider the January 2010 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices.
The January survey indicated that commercial banks generally ceased tightening standards on many loan types in the fourth quarter of last year but have yet to unwind the considerable tightening that has occurred over the past two years. The net percentages of banks reporting tighter loan terms continued to trend lower. Banks reported that loan demand from both businesses and households weakened further, on net, over the survey period.
For many major loan categories covered by the survey, the net percentages of respondents that tightened standards in the fourth quarter of 2009 were close to zero. However, banks continued to tighten a number of terms on loans to both businesses and households, although the net fractions of banks that reported doing so in the January survey generally stepped down again. Banks’ policies on CRE lending were an exception, as large net fractions of respondents further tightened their credit standards during the final quarter of last year. In addition, banks reported that they had tightened terms on CRE loans substantially over the past year.
Demand from both businesses and households for all major categories of loans weakened further, on net, over the past three months. The net fractions of banks that reported weaker demand for business loans continued to decline, while changes in the comparable readings on demand for loans to households were mixed.
Other than Commercial Real Estate, which is plagued by vacancies and falling rents, there was no change in lending standards. With that fact in mind, let’s once again investigate the charge "banks aren’t lending".
Here is the survey question on page 23: "4. Apart from normal seasonal variation, how has demand for C&I loans changed over the past three months?" followed by the table of responses.
Demand for C&I loans from large and middle-market firms
click on chart for sharper image
Demand for C&I loans from small firms (annual sales of less than $50 million)
click on chart for sharper image
Please look at that last chart carefully. It represents demand for
…
Tags: Banks, Commercial Real Estate, falling rents, loans, vacancies
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by ilene - December 30th, 2009 12:59 am
See also my recent interview with a real estate developer whose thoughts are similar to those expressed in Michael’s article below. - Ilene
Courtesy of Michael Panzner at Financial Armageddon
My friend George Ure, publisher of Urban Survival (and a related blog of the same name), as well as the Peoplenomics subscription newsletter, has posted an eye-opening commentary, "Coping: With What No One Wants To Say" (excerpted below), detailing industry insiders’ perspectives on what is really happening in the real estate market.
While the news that things aren’t getting any better in CRE and RRE won’t be much of a surprise to those who’ve actually been paying attention, it would seem to represent further evidence that the "experts" and powers that be in Washington and on Wall Street (along with their enablers in the mainstream media) are either liars, fools, or crack addicts — or some combination of all three:
Every so often, a group of major real estate developers get together for a conference where folks try to look ahead. In order to protect my source, I won’t tell you which real estate/developer conference it was, but I’ve been given permission by my source to post this high-level view of what the people who put up real dough to develop properties are seeing. This is the info that I talked about with Jeff Rense on his radio program last night — Read it and weep:
"This week I attended the [serious players] fall conference. [serious players] is the top real estate industry group in the world. All the most senior people in the industry.
1. Not one expert was willing to predict what things will look like in 3 years other than they think it will be better.
2. One top economist said if you are a developer find another career for the next 3 years-there is nothing to do and it may be 5 years.
3. Recovery will be slow. Unemployment will not drop back to more normal levels until 2014. First they will bring back people on 4 day weeks to 5 days, then they will increase hours form the
…
Tags: Commercial Real Estate, Economy, housing markets, Politics, Rating Agencies, real estate developers, real estate loans, Recession, unemployment, vacancies
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by ilene - October 16th, 2009 1:07 pm
Courtesy of Mish
Nearly 1 out of every 4 square feet of Valley office space was vacant in the third quarter ending Sept. 30, commercial-real-estate experts said.
That’s about 28 million square feet of empty space, according to Phoenix commercial-realty brokerage Colliers International, one of several Valley firms tracking the progress of sales and the leasing of office, industrial and retail buildings.
Within the next few months, about 2 million more square feet of office space will open, and less than 20 percent of it has been reported as spoken for by a future tenant.
One of the soon-to-open buildings, the 400,000-square-foot One Central Park East office tower in downtown Phoenix [at left], has yet to announce a lease agreement despite plans to open by the end of the year.
"Actually, leasing agents are optimistic," said Broker Mindy Korth of Phoenix-based CB Richard Ellis.
Korth said One Central Park is a desirable location that ultimately will find its audience. But she agreed with other experts that the high prices paid by companies such as One Central Park developer Mesirow Financial Real Estate Inc. could make it difficult to pay the bills, based on today’s lower lease rates.
More than 2,200 commercial properties in Maricopa County have received 90-day foreclosure notices since Jan. 1, representing more than $7 billion in real-estate loans on which the borrowers have failed to make payments.
Valley Vacancies
- Overall vacancies – 24.2 percent
- Scottsdale vacancies – 29.1 percent
- Downtown Phoenix vacancies – 15.7 percent
- Southeast Valley vacancies – 30.5 percent
Musical Chairs, With "Desirable Chairs" Added Each Round
Arizona leasing agents are optimistic because the "real-estate crash positions Phoenix as an attractive relocation area for companies in more expensive states, such as California".
Let’s assume for a moment that businesses transfer to Arizona from California. What would that do to California jobs and California commercial real estate prices? How many tax breaks will Phoenix give to get corporations to relocate? Will California, Illinois, New York, and other places quietly let businesses leave?
Without new business expansion, this setup is nothing
…
Tags: Commercial Real Estate, falling rents, vacancies
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.