In a word, the residential mortgage picture is: BAD.
As reported by MarketWatch, more than 11.3 million homeowners — nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage — owe more on their loan (or are “under water”), than their home is now worth, according to a report released February 23, 2010, by FirstAmerican CoreLogic.

More than 10% of […]

The January 2010 Moody’s CMBS delinquency rate hit a record at 5.42%, after posting the largest one month increase (50 bps) in history.
While the deplorable state of CMBS is not a secret to anyone following RealPoint’s monthly delinquency data, getting confirmation from a procyclical firm such as Moody’s should be enough to wake up some […]

We normally would NOT reproduce language from a prospectus filed with the SEC. HOWEVER the following language is culled directly from a very interesting and timely filing made by First Mariner Bank on Tuesday (2.9.10).
It is so related to our recent posts – regarding the collapse of the commercial real estate market and the heavy-weight […]

Here’s what MarylandCommercialTitle.com has been saying for more than two (2) years now. Could this truly be our reality?
Over the next several years, a watchdog group concludes that failed commercial real estate loans could litter American cities with empty stores and office complexes, cause hundreds of bank failures and weaken the economy.
Banks face up to […]

The largest real estate deal ever has failed. The question is, what’s next?
On Monday, January 25, 2010 — Tishman Speyer BlackRock, one of America’s largest commercial property owners, threw in the towel.
They sent their $5.3 billion investment in 11,000 apartments in New York back to their bankers – the same way some homeowners are mailing […]

Many said the economy is finally on the rise, after the quake of 2008. Perhaps that’s true in some sectors, but with respect to Commercial Real Estate (CRE), the shock-waves are getting much worse than initially imagined.
To put everything into perspective, in 2009 (a year many said was a horrible year for CRE), only […]

In a WSJ article, When Buildings Empty, Banks’ Credit Woes Pile Up, we find out that the regional banks recent rally, may be short-lived.
As banks start releasing fourth-quarter earnings this week, the losses and reserves tied to commercial real-estate loans could spike even higher than some analysts think. Regional banks could get hit hardest, given […]

Shadow inventory properties are homes that have not been tallied into official inventory numbers tracked by Realtors and other real estate professionals. They include homes taken back by lenders through foreclosures and similar actions, as well as homes whose owners are at least 90 days delinquent on their mortgage payments.
A variety of measures to keep […]

The WSJ just posted a Blog entry today regarding the commercial real-estate sector, The Most Toxic Loans in Commercial Real Estate. The gist of the discussion addresses the pressing reality that not all commercial real-estate loans are created equal.

In Wednesday’s Journal they reported that U.S. banks have been “slow” to take losses on battered commercial […]

A year after Washington rescued the big names of American finance; believe it or not, in spite of the billions committed and the alphabet soup of newly created stimulus programs, it’s still hard to get a loan.

But the problem isn’t just tight-fisted banks, according to the WSJ article, Paralysis in the Debt Markets Is […]