Archive for the 'Historical Perspective' Category

Foreclosure Stats: Up Close and Personal

By: Myles, August 15th, 2008

Are things getting better? The news certainly is not good, but the question is whether there is lemonade amongst the lemons …
 U.S. foreclosure activity in July 2008 increased 8 percent from the previous month and 55 percent from a year earlier, July 2007, according to the RealtyTrac Foreclosure Market Report released today.

Bank Repossessions (REOs) […]

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Now, Banks’ Subprime Losses Exceed $500 Billion!

By: Myles, August 12th, 2008

Today, Bloomberg News reported that 100 of the world’s biggest banks losses from the U.S. sub-prime crisis, and the ensuing credit crunch, crossed the $500 billion mark as write-downs spread to more asset types.
Further exacerbating the situation we now see that auction-rate securities have begun adding to the losses as regulators and prosecutors force banks […]

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Bank Lending Practices Q4 2008 and into 2009

By: Myles, August 12th, 2008

Much of the news over the summer of 2008 has been negative, somewhat depressing, and duplicative. Unfortunately, our post today is much of the same, but there comes a time when there is just no way to avoid the news. The truth is that we need to know how to set our course in the days to come.
As reported […]

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Finally: Some Good RE News!

By: Myles, July 31st, 2008

Is there finally some positive real estate news to report on? Looks like it. As we drill down on the raw data, and move away from a macro view, there just maybe activity that is starting to turn positive.

As reported in The Mortgage Reports, for the third straight month, at least 15 of the nation’s 20 largest […]

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Largest Monthly U.S. CRE Decline ….

By: Myles, July 22nd, 2008

As we have said on many occassions, commercial real estate is a lagging economic indicator. We have seen the strain in other areas like residential property (sub-prime crisis), rising food and gas prices, and a tightening of consumer finance options (Home Equity Lines Of Credit (HELOC), Credit Card Defaults, etc.).
Now the tail is finally starting to wag the […]

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Could things get worse?

By: Myles, July 20th, 2008

Here’s the potential $2.8 trillion dollar question. In a revealing article in the New York Times, they investigate the question of how bad could things get? Since World War II, there have been 18 banking crises in industrial countries. The worst five were caused by changing lending standards or real estate bubbles (often both) and […]

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Small Banks at risk, too ….

By: Myles, June 26th, 2008

Here we go again. Recently, the headlines have been dominated by the global banks, like Bear Sterns, and their massive missteps and huge losses.
For instance, this just in from CitiGroup: $8.9 billion of write-downs in the second quarter, nearly $15 billion of losses in the last two quarters of 2008, and more than $46 […]

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Non-Residential Trends (More good news) ….

By: Myles, June 25th, 2008

John Caulfield in BuilderOnline, attempts to predict the trending in the Non-Residential market (and read the tea leaves), as it is suggested that the economic downturn seems to be taking its toll on the non-residential sector, which despite a strong year in 2007 and gains as recently as last month, could be faltering a bit. 
Last week, McGraw-Hill […]

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Worst Housing Market in 50 Years …

By: Myles, June 23rd, 2008

As reported by Inman News, the current housing slump is far from over and is shaping up to be the worst in 50 years, according to an annual report on the state of the nation’s housing markets from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Drastic production cuts and deep price discounts in 2005-2007 helped […]

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Dinosaurs, Tar Pits and Macklowe: Real Estate Today

By: Myles, May 23rd, 2008

Here is an absolutely fascinating analysis of the commercial real estate market as posted in Seeking Alfpha, entitled Real Estate: Modern Fundaments.
A Historical Analogy: As we think about the dominance of the dinosaur and the 40 plus million years they roamed the earth, there is a clear sense of power. It is all the more powerful […]

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