News
Residential Construction, Financial Companies Have Tough Day on Wall Street
New York–Financial and homebuilder stocks declined Monday as news of the weakening employment sector increased fears that consumer credit will continue downward, the Financial Times reports.Concern that rising loan delinquencies and falling home prices would dampen corporate earnings didn’t help; retail stocks also lost ground as investors looked to sell after last week’s jobs report, which indicated a U.S. recession has become more of a reality.Mid-Monday, the S&P 500 was down 0.8 percent at 1,384.81. The homebuilder sector was down by 5.3 percent and the financial sector by 2.2 percent. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.8 percent to 2,393.33; the Dow…
2008 Tax Legislation Outlook
2007. Although NMHC/NAA and other real estate groups were successful in raising concerns among lawmakers about the impact of the provision on the real estate industry and the economy generally, the carried interest issue is very likely to continue to be examined in 2008 and subsequent years as the search for tax increases to fulfill PAYGO requirements continues.Estate TaxEstate tax reform is another issue expected to receive attention in 2008 and significantly more in 2009. In 2001, Congress passed a law that reduces the federal estate tax each year from 2002 to 2009, and then fully repeals it for one…
MBA Reports Decreased Originations, Predicts Future Changes
By Suzann D. Silverman, Editor-in-Chief, Commercial Property NewsCommercial/multifamily mortgage originations ended last year down, thanks largely to the credit crunch, the Mortgage Bankers Association announced on Monday at the annual Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo. And while solid fundamentals provide promise for the future, when the economy does return, certain aspects of the real estate financing business will be different, according to a presentation by MBA senior vice president & chief economist for research and business development Douglas Duncan (pictured) and senior director of commercial/multifamily research Jamie Woodwell. “Location, location, location (will be) mattering again,” noted Woodwell,…
Prudence Returns to Multifamily, Commercial Markets Says MBA
By Suzann D. Silverman, Editor-in-Chief, Commercial Property News“Prudence Took a Vacation, and Then She Came Back” is what moderator Shekar Narasimhan, managing partner of Beekman Advisors Inc., nicknamed the multifamily session “The Music Stopped: Who Has a Chair?” at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo, and it was a fitting title. Generally, the speakers agreed that while the commercial and multifamily markets can expect some pain, especially given a number of unknowns to come, the credit crunch and single-family fallout have proven to be more of a much-needed wakeup call than anything else. That’s…
Ontario Court To Get $9M for Rehabilitation
By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Washington, D.C.–Enterprise Community Investment, Inc., Jubilee Housing, Jubilee JumpStart and PNC Bank will rehabilitate the Ontario Court affordable housing apartments, located at 2525 Ontario Rd. NW in Washington, D.C.’s Adams Morgan community. All 27 units on this property will undergo renovations and a 24-hour child-care center will be built. Ontario Court is owned by Jubilee Housing and will continue to be affordable for low- to moderate-income families earning up to 80 percent of area median income (AMI). More than half of the apartments will be affordable to those earning 30 percent or less of AMI.“Enterprise…
Lighthouse Property Management: Leading by Example
By Teresa O’Dea Hein, Managing EditorLighthouse Property Management of Wyoming, Mich. earned the Great Lakes Area Star (GLAStar) Award for “Management Company of the Year 2007” from the Property Management Association of Michigan (PMAM) during the organization’s education conference, which featured nationally recognized speakers like Jackie Ramstedt, Terri Trainer and Terry Jackson.The GLAStar Awards honor excellence in the Michigan apartment industry. They are presented at a gala awards dinner each year, with the 2007 event being held in East Lansing. Brian Hossink founded Lighthouse Property Management almost five years ago in the Grand Rapids, Mich. area with Kathy Dennison, who…
J. Josephson Inc.
The Vycon and Symphony wall covering series now has a functional solution to combat moisture and prevent mold and mildew for vinyl wall coverings.Exterior surfacing and vapor barriers can get rid of a majority of mold and mildew by deflecting the moisture outside a building. But there still remains moisture between the outside and inside walls, and Vycon and Symphony wall coverings help in eliminating that.Vycon and Symphony, manufactured by J. Josephson Inc., a contract wall covering company, use micro-venting technology that creates invisible perforations allowing moisture to pass more easily through walls, thereby reducing the build-up of condensation.Micro-venting lets…
New York Residential Real Estate Echoes 1980s Boom–and Bust
New York–Although the average Manhattan home has doubled in value in the past decade, the housing market has begun to affect the Big Apple, reminding some economists of the housing decline that trailed the 1980s real estate boom, The New York Times reports.Rents in Manhattan decreased last month by more than 7 percent in some areas, according to a report by the Real Estate Group New York.Some expect the current situation to worsen: James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University–who has tallied the New York City real estate market…
Lawmakers Suggest Washington Officials Address Housing Issues
Washington, D.C.–As the $150 billion stimulus plan hits the Senate for approval, lawmakers are suggesting housing needs more help, the Financial Times reported Monday.The home foreclosure rate has remained high, despite attempts to encourage the private sector to reduce it–prompting Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd to say last week that “to the extent this economic crisis has a face: it’s housing. And to the extent there’s a face on the housing crisis, it’s the foreclosure crisis.”The Hope Now Alliance, a group of mortgage lenders, servicers and counselors formed In October to help subprime homeowners refinance and avoid foreclosure, has…
People’s Bank of China Encourages Affordable Housing
Beijing–The central bank of China ordered commercial lenders to ease loan restrictions for affordable housing developers, the Economic Times reports.The People’s Bank of China said last week that banks are able to extend loans for affordable housing if the developers raise 30 percent of the total capital–previously, the requirement for more expensive homes was 35 percent.As China’s real estate market has grown, the government has been trying to offer incentives for builders to provide affordable housing. The central bank raised the lending period from 3 to 5 years and said that banks now can lend to affordable housing developers at…