Last Word
Trouble Lurks Under the Surface
The waters of the commercial property markets appear calm, but is more trouble lurking beneath the surface? Whether you are a lender or a borrower, the...
Don't Delay CMBS Write-downs
Over the coming months, holders of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) may be faced with write-downs as the values of commercial property decline...
IRR Miscalculations Waste Time and Money
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is a valuable tool used across the real estate industry. By boiling down profitability to a single interest-rate equivalent,...
Smart Investors Sniff Out Apartment Deals
Players in the real estate industry are operating in a challenging new environment. This includes those of us in the multifamily sector, which has had...
A Structured Finance Hangover
At the height of the commercial real estate market's historic up cycle in 1999, collateralized debt obligations emerged on the scene. In fact, during...
Golden Era Vanishes
My reading on the plane trip to Cannes was The Exchange Artist: America's First Banking Collapse, a book by Jane Kamensky. A web of increasingly remote,...
It Smells Like Distress
People always underestimate how bad things can get. While we all know that trees don't grow to the sky, during a boom market the human spirit cannot believe...
How to Close the Insurance Gap On Architectural Design Defects
Most architects maintain $1 million or less in professional liability insurance, and the large firms typically carry no more than $5 million. Simple human...
Making A Business Case for Green Building
In Georgia, we call a politician with a particularly sugary tongue someone who can talk the birds from the trees. No doubt, little green birds were dropping...
Credit Bears Romp
It sure is tough to be a bull these days. One ominous signal: On Oct. 19, exactly 20 years after the Black Monday stock market crash, the Dow Jones Industrial...
