Archive for May, 2009

Trillion Dollars of Commercial Real Estate Loans Coming Due?

From 2010 to 2013 about 1,000,000,000,000 dollars of commercial real estate loans are coming due. For those of you who are numerically challenged, this is 1 trillion dollars. Not a million, not a billion, a trillion dollars. A thousand billion or a hundred thousand million dollars.
Some of this money should roll over, but there [...]

21May2009 | Tom Royce | 7 comments | Continued

Need To Sell Your Commercial Property? Call Your Local College

So you have a large commercial property for sale and there are no buyers. What are you to do?
You know the credit markets are still frozen, and corporations are skittish in giving up any capital in the face of a recession, right? So what buyers are left.
Call your local college or university. They have ready [...]

20May2009 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Housing Starts Down 54.2 Percent For April, 2009

New housing starts dropped significantly in April, 2009 down 54.2 percent from April, 2008. There were only 458,000 homes started in the month.
The Commerce Department also is reporting new housing starts dropped to levels not seen since 1959. New building permits, an indicator of future building, were also down.

New building permits, which give a sense [...]

19May2009 | Tom Royce | 7 comments | Continued

How High Tax States Drive Out The Rich

States across the country are facing huge deficits and their answer to solving the problem is to raise taxes, especially on the rich. But recent studies have shown that these taxes don’t help, they just drive away the rich to low tax states.
And the losers in the situation are the middle class. For real estate [...]

19May2009 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

Chysler and GM Dealer Cuts Will Hurt Commercial Real Estate

If commercial real estate needs another body blow right now, the closing of thousands of auto dealerships by Chrysler and General Motors is going to hurt commercial real estate prices across the country.
Nearly 2,000 dealerships will be closed or re-purposed in the next year or so as the big automotive companies cut the number [...]

18May2009 | Tom Royce | 4 comments | Continued

Phoenix’s Real Estate Market Hits Tipping Point

After a long and painful period of decline, Phoenix’s real estate market is finally showing signs of life. Sure the big movers are foreclosures and that those who bought at the top have seen their property values drop nearly 50 percent. But the perpetual gloom that has hung over Phoenix, the poster child for the [...]

18May2009 | Tom Royce | 5 comments | Continued

I Hate My Agent!

Wallet Pop has a great article titled “Real estate truths you won’t learn from HGTV” talking about how real estate investments are probably not the best way to invest your money. It was a very interesting consumer focused article discussing the pitfalls of following the remodeling craze the home design shows recommend.
But the final [...]

14May2009 | Tom Royce | 15 comments | Continued

Angelo Mozilo To Be Charged With Fraud By The SEC

Angelo Mozilo, former head of Countrywide Mortgage, is rumored to be in the sights of the SEC. Charges of civil fraud are expected to be filed against Mozilo due to the timing of his stock sales before the significant drop in the mortgage market. All the while Mozilo was telling the marketplace everything was fine. [...]

14May2009 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

Federal Government Mortgage Bailout Off To Slow Start

The great savior of the Federal Government’s foreclosure bailout plan is struggling to get out of the gate. For a time sensitive project, the inability to get the bureaucracy moving is not surprising, but disappointing.
What will probably be worse is once the mortgage forgiveness plan gets moving though, it will far outlast the housing [...]

14May2009 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

Can Land Contracts Claim the $8000.00 Tax Credit?

Missy Caulk, a top Realtor in Ann Arbor, has heard from the legal adviser to the Michigan Association of Realtors and he seems to think so. This could be a windfall for many who are looking to get the tax credit but are not ready to buy a home yet.

Can buyers in Michigan who buy on [...]

13May2009 | Tom Royce | 47 comments | Continued