Archive for September 26th, 2008
Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Residential developers, during the boom, built, sold, and then built some more. Now they’re taking a welcome breather.
The new home inventory is the lowest it has been since August 2004, according to a new Census Bureau report. Unfortunately, new home sales dropped 11.5% to a 17-year low in August. The supply of homes at the current feeble sales pace dropped to a 10.3 months supply in August from 10.9 months in July.
This graph from the Businomics Blog gives you a good picture of the dramatic rise and fall of new construction.
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Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Whoo Hoo!
That’s what many Washington Mutual customers are saying as several weeks of turmoil at the nation’s largest savings and loan comes to an end. WaMu is being acquired by an even larger rival, J.P. Morgan Chase, whose name alone promises some stability.
There’s lot of sadness here of course. WaMu shareholders have gotten wiped out–lost everything. That’s not true of Alan Fishman, WaMU ceo for all of two weeks, who might be entitled to $18 million in severance and signing bonus.
Then there are the employees of both WaMu and Chase who will lose their jobs. Chase CEO Jamie Dimon say the company will close about 10% or 500 of the combined branches.
WaMu’slending practices were clearly bad. But the company’s TV advertisements provided a lot of humor in an industry not known for levity. Maybe the takeaway here is that your bank shouldn’t run funny ads depicting other bankers as fat old guys in suits, drinking champagne and soaking customers for fees. Maybe we were all suckered by WaMu’s cappuccinos and free Internet service in branches.
Or maybe we can continue to hope there are bankers out there who take their business–but not themselves–seriously.
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September 26th, 2008
People oftentimes invite a look at how we get the videos. When we were placing unitedly the the "Electing a US President " video, I progressed to a particular point to accept photos of the process. Hither's how it exploits:
Every video starts with a script. If there is "unavowed sauce" it happens [...]
Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Wall Street’s meltdown has put the squeeze on all sorts of lending, and home loans are no exception. Now, even some very well-qualified home buyers are getting turned down for mortgages.
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Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
AvalonBay Communities Inc. has received $135 million in financing–the multi-family REIT’s largest bond financing ever closed–to fund construction of Avalon Walnut Creek at Contra Centre, a $400 million mixed-use, transit-oriented development next to the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Pleasant Hill Bay station. Read more »
Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Marlton, N.J.-based construction manager Hill International has created Hill International Real Estate Partners L.P., a real estate development services firm that will serve the commercial and hospitality industries across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The newly formed entity has already made a grand move–the firm just acquired developer Walnut Street Capital’s interests in the 2.2 million-square-foot American Commerce Center project in Philadelphia. Read more »
Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Lowe Enterprises Investors, the investment management affiliate of national real estate company Lowe Enterprises, has acquired a 266,000-square-foot industrial distribution facility in central Los Angeles. The $31.5 million acquisition from an institutional owner was made on behalf of an investment client. Read more »
Continue Reading September 26th, 2008
Washington Mutual customers checking their failed bank’s Web site this morning were greeted with a welcome from the thrift’s new owner, JPMorgan Chase, which assured customers that their deposits were safe and banks would operate as usual today. Read more »