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The Business Insider (Free subscription) | yesterday
Commercial real estate is one trend that isn't getting 'less bad'. It's just getting worse. According to a recent August commercial real estate white paper, First American Corelogic shows how distressed commercial properties, excluding Boston, in May were 580% higher (6.8 times) the amount distressed in January 2006. Despite the carnage, it sounds like a great opportunity for the private equity players....
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The Business Insider (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
Stuart Saft, a partner at Dewey & LeBoef, argues over at Forbes (via SquareFeet )that judges are exacerbating the pain in commercial real estate. In the last few weeks there have been a series of court decisions that will have repercussions in the credit markets for years to come making an already cautious lending community absolutely paranoid, and restricting credit even if available. In Syracuse,...
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Wall Street Pit (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
Real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell, who in 2007 sold his his supersize real estate portfolio, Equity Office Properties Trust, to the Blackstone Group (BX) for $39 billion, had choice words Thursday for billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and all the other wannabe experts on the commercial real estate...
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The Business Insider (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
Real estate mogul Sam Zell had choice words Thursday for billionaire Wilbur Ross and all the other wannabe experts on the commercial real estate crisis. Apparently taking issue with recent comments Mr. Ross made to the press about a huge crash hitting commercial property markets, Zell said for “all the new savants on commercial real estate (like) Wilbur Ross…I find their comments..are...
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Climateer Investing (Free subscription) | 11/17/2009
The stock is up $4.64 (21.9%) at $25.85. From Notable Calls : J.P. Morgan is out with another major call on Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) raising their price target to $42 from $28 following earnings announcement out last night. AGO reported op EPS in line with the pre-announced $0.45 per share. Included in its Q was a premium amortization schedule that was well above what JPM had previously modeled....
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SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009
The latest data from the AAII shows just how confused investors are regarding the current market environment and whether the recovery is real. Just 10 days ago the market was in the middle of a minor 6% decline and it appeared as though earnings were largely priced in and that economic data was beginning to disappoint. Markets tanked nearly 3% the day before Halloween as comments from Carl Icahn and...
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Climateer Investing (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
We saw a couple mentions* of these problems last week, this one makes it a meme. If you know any of the Enron story you know that Chanos is sharp. Disregard at your own risk. Later on I'll post some of Warren Buffet's thinking on muni's, this is going to be a big story. Another thing, the former monoline (one business, insuring principle and interest of muni's) insurers Ambac and MBIA look like they...
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The Reformed Broker (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… Bubble Up! G-20 stimulus doing it’s thang…everything up overnight. (Bloomberg) NBC and Comcast sittin’ in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. (NYT) Rupert Murdoch versus The Internet. Good luck, guy. (BoingBoing) Wells Fargo: Escape from the TARP. (DealBook) Germany celebrates a Wall-less 20 years. (WSJ) Wilbur Ross on the next disaster: Commercial...
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Millionaire Now! (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Commercial real estate loans from 2003 to 2006 are now coming due as property values decline and refinancing is nowhere to be found. Reality for banks is just around the corner. We see a perfect storm. Banks are already crippled so it won’t take much to push them over the edge. In the middle of this is, the Treasury and the Fed, they are in a box and they cannot get out. The fall of commercial...
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The Reasoned Sceptic (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Yesterday's business news was all about Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway buying the 78% of Burlington Northern railroad that it did not already own. On CNBC , they interrupted regular programming for a long telephone interview with the investor. He said, clearly, that buying the remainder of BNI was a 'long term bet on the US economy.' Period. Additionally, he cited some statistic involving the...
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The Business Insider (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Famed vulture Wilbur Ross keeps trying to instill fear in the commercial real estate market. He was on CNBC this morning, predicting that the coming collapse would create "tragedies." The CRE stuff starts at 4:25 (via Square Feet ) Join the conversation about this story » See Also: Soros, Ross: Commercial Real-Estate Crash Is Coming And It's Going To Be Terrific P.E. Big Shots Are...
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Deal Junkie (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Billionaire Wilbur Ross made some news the other day with his views on commercial real estate. This morning, he clarified his views on CNBC. I'm not sure if I agree 100% with his equating reckless lending in commercial real estate with subprime lending in the housing market though. His comments starts at around 4:26 minute mark.
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Wall Street Pit (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Wilbur Ross is of the opinion that commercial real estate faces a crisis in the coming months that will cause significant problems in the sector. “The same reckless lending that characterized the subprime mortgage business in residential was also characterizing what had gone on in [CRE] in...
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EconomicPolicyJournal.com (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Vulture investor Wilbur Ross is sure talking down the commercial real estate market.He told CNBC this morning that:Everything's going in the wrong direction and I think we're going to see quite a lot of tragedies in that sector...The same reckless lending that characterized the subprime mortgage business in residential was also characterizing what went on in commercial real estate in the mid
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[ The Financial Ninja ] (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Wilbur Ross Sees ‘Huge’ Commercial Real Estate Crash (Update3): "Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr,, said today that U.S. is in the beginning of a "huge crash in commercial real estate." On Friday 9 banks failed and were seized by the FDIC, the largest number of failures since the crisis began. Included was California National Bank, the fourth-largest U.S. bank failure...