Não declarar trabalho doméstico vai deixar de ser crime

[Branc0]

Mais um boneco, do US Census Bureau.

Interessante que todos os analistas falam que é preciso encontrar o fundo do mercado imobiliário para dar a volta... olhando para o gráfico, o fundo já tem 12 meses.

[Branc0]

Já agora deixo aqui um excerto do relatório do INE do ano passado (Portugal em números) que mostra o progresso dos ultimos 12 anos.

Veja-se como os sectores de construção, imobiliaria e financeira tiveram um crescimento acima da média, particularmente da nossa industria

[goncalonr]

REAL ESTATE HEADING FOR A ROUGH RIDE
Nobody knows where the bottom is
By Janet Morrissey
January 4, 2009, 6:01 AM EST Post a Comment Recommend


Commercial real estate is heading into its worst year since the industry's crash of 1991-92 and likely won't see a significant rebound until 2011 at the earliest, according to industry experts.
Many predict that property values will tumble 15% to 20% on average from their 2007 peaks, with even steeper declines coming in weaker markets.

"It's not going to be pretty next year," said Sam Lieber, chief executive of Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC in Purchase, N.Y. "Commercial real estate is going to be under pressure for the next two years" from declining demand, falling rents, rising vacancies and liquidity issues, he said.


With so much uncertainty surrounding the length and depth of the recession, the frozen credit markets and the effectiveness of government bailout programs, experts are having a rough time forecasting a bottom.
"This is the third recession that I've been through with Grubb & Ellis [Co.], and I think there are more question marks at the end of this one than any of the previous two as to how we're going to get out of it and how deep it will be," said Robert Bach, chief economist with the Santa Ana, Calif.-based commercial-real-estate-services and investment company.

At best, the country may see modest economic growth in the second half of 2009, he said.

Since commercial real estate tends to lag the economy, it likely won't bottom until mid-2010 at the earliest — "and that's if we're lucky," Mr. Bach said.

"This is going to be the worst year since the 1991-92 industry depression," said Stephen Blank, senior resident fellow for real estate finance at the Urban Land Institute in Washington. "It's a bleak picture."

Fitch Ratings Ltd. of New York recently downgraded its 2009 outlook for equity real estate investment trusts to negative, from stable.

Mr. Lieber is predicting that unemployment will reach 8.5% to 9% by yearend, which does not bode well for real estate demand. Meanwhile, property values will fall 10% to 25% over the next 18 months depending on the location and property sector, he said.

Medical-office properties, apartments and industrial real estate are expected to weather the recession far better than office buildings, malls and hotel properties, according to Mr. Bach.

Publicly traded real estate companies and REITs have already taken a beating in anticipation of the meltdown, losing about half of their value in 2008. "In some cases, values have already fallen as much or more than [the housing market]," said David Jacobstein, senior adviser to Deloitte & Touche USA LLP's real estate practice in New York. "They're ridiculously low, and dividend yields are at historic highs." Still, some names may have further to fall.

The biggest challenge facing real estate in 2009 is credit.

Indeed, investors have cast a nervous eye toward REITs that have a big chunk of their debt rolling over in the next year or two. Many worry they'll be unable to refinance the debt in the frozen markets, which could threaten their future.

The debt wake-up call came in early 2008 when stunned investors watched New York mogul Harry Macklowe sell off some of his crown jewel properties, including his prized General Motors Building, to meet debt calls.

The chairman and chief executive of Macklowe Properties Inc. of New York had gone on a buying spree at the height of the real estate boom in 2007, purchasing seven skyscrapers in Manhattan for about $7 billion.

When the music stopped in the credit markets, Mr. Macklowe was unable to refinance his debt, forcing him to sell off properties to keep creditors at bay.

Credit concerns escalated later in the year when a couple of blue-chip names in the REIT world — General Growth Properties Inc. in Chicago and ProLogis in Denver — frantically struggled with debt problems. In a Nov. 10 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, General Growth ominously warned: "Our potential inability to address our 2008 or 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern."

All of this caused spooked investors to dump REITs this past fall, with many nervously speculating on who might stumble next. REITs facing the biggest risk are those whose debt levels exceed 70% of total market cap and those with a significant amount of debt, especially unsecured debt, rolling over in 2009 and 2010.

However, the credit crisis could present a buying opportunity for investors and REITs with the means. A mountain of debt created during the frothy real estate boom of 2006 and 2007 will start rolling over in 2009, 2010 and 2011, said Glen Esnard, president of the capital markets group at Grubb & Ellis. "A lot of that debt is not refinanceable" in the current markets and could be sold at fire sale prices.

Last October, even billionaire investor Carl Icahn pontificated, "On an internal-rate-of-return basis, you're getting 15% or 16% for debt that should have hardly any risk."

"Distressed debt is where it's at," said Mr. Jacobstein. "There is an awful lot of people with a lot of money sitting on the sidelines waiting" to jump in, he said.

[goncalonr]

U.S. Shopping Mall Vacancies Reach 10-Year High as Stores Fail
Email | Print | A A A

By Hui-yong Yu

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Vacancies at U.S. malls and shopping centers approached 10-year highs in the fourth quarter, and are set to rise further as declining retail sales put more stores out of business, research firm Reis Inc. said.

Regional mall vacancies rose to 7.1 percent last quarter from 6.6 percent in the third quarter. It was the highest vacancy rate since Reis began tracking regional malls in 2000, as well as the largest quarter-to-quarter jump in vacancies, according to New York-based Reis.

More than a dozen retailers, including Circuit City Stores Inc., Linens ‘n Things Inc. and Sharper Image Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008 as the credit squeeze and recession drained sales. Vacancies will rise further until the job market recovers, housing prices stabilize and lending resumes, restoring consumer confidence, said Reis.

“So much of consumer spending depends on the wealth effect,” said Victor Calanog, director of research at Reis. “Unfortunately, all three conditions are still in flux. Even when they stabilize we often observe anywhere from a 12- to 24- month lag until commercial retail properties begin benefiting.”

At neighborhood and community shopping centers, the vacancy rate rose to 8.9 percent from 8.4 percent in the third quarter, the highest since Reis began publishing quarterly data in 1999.

Shopping Centers Suffer

Asking rents at malls fell 0.2 percent from the previous quarter and rose 0.3 percent from a year earlier. Mall vacancies have climbed 2 percentage points from the 5.1 percent in 2005’s second quarter, the low for the last business cycle, said Reis.

Asking rents at shopping centers, which are typically anchored by a grocery store, fell 0.3 percent from the prior quarter and rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier. Effective rents fell 0.9 percent from the prior quarter and were down 1.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Reis.

At neighborhood shopping centers, tenants vacated more space than they leased, causing so-called net absorption to shrink by 4.1 million square feet, according to Reis.

“Neighborhood and community centers coming online encountered tremendous difficulties in pre-leasing retail space,” Calanog said. “This has been prevalent all throughout 2008, with new projects coming online at around 50 percent vacant, compared to the 25 percent to 30 percent vacancy levels for new projects in previous years.”

More Closing

Retailers will close 12,000 stores in 2009, after the worst holiday sales in 40 years, according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail consulting and investment-banking firm Davidowitz & Associates Inc. in New York.

The Bloomberg REIT Shopping Center Index of 20 companies led by Kimco Realty Corp. lost a third of its value during the past year, about the same as the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Kimco, the largest U.S. owner of community shopping centers, cut its earnings forecast for 2008, citing the credit crisis.

The Bloomberg REIT Regional Mall Index of seven mall owners fell 57 percent. The index was dragged down by General Growth Properties Inc., the country’s second-largest regional mall landlord, whose shares tumbled 96 percent. The company took on debt for acquisitions and couldn’t refinance once the credit crisis took hold.

Simon Property Group Inc., the biggest U.S. mall owner, lost 435,000 square feet to bankruptcies last year through Sept. 30, up from 50,000 square feet in the same period a year earlier, Chief Executive Officer David Simon said in November. Simon’s multiyear leases protect the company to some extent from monthly changes in consumer spending, Simon said.

[goncalonr]

Finance REITsCNL, Macquarie Plan $1.5B Global REIT
Jan 7, 2009
By: Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Orlando-based CNL Financial Group and Sydney's Macquarie Group have joined forces for the first time to establish a new global REIT, CNL Macquarie Global Growth Trust Inc., which will pursue opportunities in just about every sector of commercial real estate in various areas around the world. The partners can afford to think big, as the proposed total offering for the REIT is $1.5 billion.

Timing is everything and CNL and Macquarie believe that now--in the midst of what has essentially become a global meltdown of the real estate market--is just the right moment to lay the groundwork for a new REIT with a broad investment platform.

"Like many others in the industry, we do believe that there will be some tremendous opportunities for those with capital to invest in quality properties within the next two years," Curtis McWilliams (pictured), president & CEO of CNL Real Estate , told CPN. "That's in the short term; in the long run, we want the ability to invest across sectors and across the globe to achieve the kind of returns we want to achieve."

CNL Macquarie Global will target office, retail, industrial, multi-family and healthcare properties for acquisition, repositioning, development and redevelopment in markets with growth potential. And those markets could be just about anywhere, but the goal is for 30 percent of the assets to be sited beyond U.S. borders. "We're trying to be very opportunistic," McWilliams said. "Macquarie has investment operations in all parts of the world, so we're relying on them to identify opportunities outside the U.S. in locations where we have the best opportunity for value creation for our investors on a risk-adjusted basis."

CNL and Macquarie will manage CNL Macquarie Global jointly, and making allowances for the filing process, the partners foresee making the unlisted U.S. REIT available to investors in the second half of 2009. If all goes as planned, the REIT's buying power down the road will be phenomenal. "We expect to use a certain amount of leverage with regard to the properties, so we will be able to acquire twice the amount if all the equity is raised." That would be a spending purse of about $3 billion.

Established 36 years ago, CNL is a privately held real estate investment and development concern that has formed or acquired companies with more than $23 billion in assets ranging from hotel and retail properties to seniors housing communities. Macquarie is a banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services provider. The company manages in excess of $180 billion in assets around the world.

[goncalonr]

Marks & Spencer to close down 27 shops
Date: 8 January 2009
Category: Retail
UK high street retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) said on Wednesday that it plans to close 27 shops in the UK as a result of falling consumer demand over the last three months. As part of its third quarter interim management statement, M&S announced the proposed closure of 27 stores, including 25 underperforming Simply Food stores and two main chain M&S stores. It added that up to 780 jobs could be lost as a result of the measure.

The company also revealed a 1.2% drop in group sales over the last three months and said it was launching a cost-cutting programme aimed at reducing expenses by £175 mln to £200 mln.

Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman said: 'Group sales were down 1.2%. Sales in the UK were down 3.4%. Our post Christmas sale which started on 27 December with 15% less stock into sale than last year has cleared quickly.'

He added: 'We continued to control costs tightly and now expect operating cost growth for 2008/09 to be towards the lower end of our guidance of 4-5%.'

Rose said the company is also proposing to reduce the costs of its head offices, with the subsequent loss of up to 450 jobs, representing around 15% of our head offices headcount.

In Property EU

[goncalonr]

London commercial property investment fell 65% in 2008 - C&W
Date: 8 January 2009
Category: Research
Investment in commercial property in Central London fell 65% to only £6.8 bn in 2008, down from 2007's record figure of £19.4 bn, according to international property services firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Around £3.4 bn was invested during 2008 in the West End market which includes Mayfair and Victoria. This was a fall of 41% on 2007's total of £5.8 bn. In the last quarter cash rich private investors dominated activity investing £67.8 mln in this district. In the City & Docklands market, investment fell markedly more. 2008's year end total was £3.4 bn down a steep 75% from 2007's total of £13.6 bn.

'London's West End is a market which has traditionally shown most resilience to swings,' said Clive Bull, head of Central London investment at C&W. The district saw a total of £209 mln transacted in the last quarter, which compares to some £690 mln for the previous quarter and £1.325 bn for the same quarter in 2007. 'The deals that have been completed include the purchase of 1 Old Bond Street, reflecting a yield of approximately 3.55% and 160 Piccadilly at a yield of approximately 4%. The majority of the transactions have been carried out by private investors using a high proportion of equity given the continuing lack of debt available.'

He added: 'Toward the end of the quarter we saw signs of opportunity funds from both the UK and overseas taking a much closer look at the West End market as yields continue to move out. Currently there are a number of high profile buildings in the West End under offer although not, as yet, exchanged or completed.'

Bill Tyser, head of City investment at C&W said: 'Investment into the City and Docklands market of around £3.4 bn reflects something in the order of 25% of the turnover achieved in the year ending 2007 and more akin to the level of turnover achieved at the beginning of this decade. Of this turnover, around one quarter has been transacted by German funds, who, for the time being, have largely drawn back from the market since September.'

In Property EU

[goncalonr]

GPR 250 Europe down 45.5% in 2008
Date: 7 January 2009
Category: Index
The GPR Europe Index recorded an unambiguous loss of 45.5% for 2008 despite ending 5.7% higher for the month of December, according to Amsterdam-based real estate securities specialist Global Property Research.

All national indices recorded a negative result over the whole of 2008. The country performances for full-year 2008, followed by the December result, are as follows:

(All performances are shown in local currency)

Switzerland (-3.7%/+1.4%)
Belgium (-13.7%/+2.1%)
Sweden (-19.2%/+32.8%)
France (-33.4%/+5.0%)
The Netherlands (-36.6%/+4.9%)
Italy (-39.2%/+12.4%)
UK (-45.4%/+1.4%)
Greece (Babis Vovos I.C.; -56.0%/-33.9%)
Finland (-56.1%/+16.6%)
Turkey (Is REIT; -57.3%/+1.4%)
Germany (-62.9%/+42.5%)
Poland (GTC; -65.9%/-5.0%)
Austria (-84.9%/+10.0%)
Norway (Norwegian Property; -90.3%/-22.1%).

The regional GPR 250 indices recorded the following performances:

GPR 250 Africa +1.5%
GPR 250 Americas -38.3%
GPR 250 Global -45.1%
GPR 250 Europe -45.5%
GPR 250 Asia -49.9%
GPR 250 Oceania -52.8%

[goncalonr]

Banks buy EUR 443m assets from Martinsa-Fadesa
Date: 6 January 2009
Category: Company
Martinsa-Fadesa, the Spanish property developer which filed for administration in July, has sold EUR 443 mln worth of property assets to creditor banks BBVA, Banco Santander and savings bank Caixa Galicia, newspaper Expansion reported.

The company, which is offloading real estate in an effort to repay creditors, has sold three housing projects, with 502 residential units, and eight plots of land for a total value of EUR 233 mln to banking giant BBVA. According to Expansion, Santander has purchased 85 buildings and plots for a total value of EUR 186.5 mln, while Caixa Galicia has bought land worth of EUR 24 mln destined to the development of 404 housing units in Pontevedra.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Monday that the company is putting land up for sale at a price 10 times cheaper than its appraised value in December 2007.

In Property EU

[goncalonr]

Thousands of stores to disappear in '09
Experts say disastrous holiday sales will force many more merchants into bankruptcy - and ultimately into liquidation.
By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: January 1, 2009: 8:34 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The ugly sales year that was 2008 will haunt U.S. retailers in 2009, with industry experts warning that disastrous holiday sales will spark a domino effect of store closures and bankruptcy filings.

And, with thousands of fewer stores, the "shop-'til-you-drop" mentality that has characterized American consumerism could be coming to an end.

"There's going to be a massive sea change in the retail landscape," said Nina Kampler, executive vice president with Hilco Real Estate, which advises retailers on their property management.

She said many strip shopping centers already have multiple big-box vacancies after several large stores filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Some eventually went out of business.

When that happens, the smaller stores in the strip centers can't attract the requisite customer traffic to stay productive and profitable.

Michael Burden, principal with industry adviser Excess Space Retail Services, expects as many as 14,000 stores will close in 2009. "We could see among the highest ever number of closures," he said.

He said states such as Nevada, California and Florida will be especially hard hit.

The International Council of Shopping Centers estimates that chain store closings could exceed 3,100 in just the first half of the year.

Burden's firm, whose 450 U.S. retail clients include Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), J.C. Penney (JCP, Fortune 500) and Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500), helps retailers in the disposition of their surplus real estate.

He said most merchants will be in a "bunker" mentality.

"It's about survivability," he said. "Retailers have to really fight to live another day and do what they can to get through to 2010."

Burden said that means closing underperforming stores, shedding stores under bankruptcy restructuring, and even "right-sizing" stores - shrinking the store size or moving to a smaller location.

"We'll see a lot of shaking out of the industry," he said, adding that no sector will be spared. "Apparel, home furnishings, home improvement, electronics, luxury sellers will all close stores."

Consumer impact
For consumers, it will mean both fewer stores to shop and possibly less brand variety on shelves.

"Retailers across the board from top-end luxury to mom-and-pop stores on Main Street are feeling a gigantic consumer [spending] choke from people's perceived and actual loss of wealth," said Kampler.

"At the end of the day, people are buying far less stuff. They are buying what they need as opposed to what they want," she said.

This spending slump, which started in early 2008, has already claimed a number of retail casualties. Prominent national chains such as Linens 'n Things, Steve & Barry's, KB Toys, Whitehall Jewelers and Shoe Pavilion have gone out of business.

Still others such as No. 2 electronics seller Circuit City are barely surviving, hoping to find a lifeline while in bankruptcy protection.

But after suffering one of the worst year-end shopping seasons in decades - November and December combined can account for half of merchants' annual profits and sales - experts predict that many more chains will disappear.

Kampler said she personally knows of "dozens" of retailers who are taking a very hard look at their entire business. She declined to identify them due to confidentiality agreements.

"They are considering closing entire divisions or restructuring parts of their business that they want to keep," she said

As retailers' sales continue to tumble and mall traffic evaporates, one of the biggest challenges for sellers is their rent occupancy costs.

Kampler explained that the amount of rent a retailer can comfortably pay for a given store location is proportionately related to the volume of sales generated at that location.

Ideally, she said a retailer's occupancy cost should be equal to 10% of its sales. But a long stretch of slumping sales and rising mall vacancies can dramatically push up the occupancy costs.

"Once rent and occupancy costs hit the 20% to 25% of sales threshold, you are treading water," she said. "You can't run a viable business with those numbers".

Also, once a retailer faces a cash shortage, the likely next step is to file for bankruptcy protection. To that end, Kampler predicts that retail bankruptcy filings will " be huge" in January.

But given the implosive impact of the overall economy on the retail sector, Kampler said filing for bankruptcy could be the death knell for those merchants.

"It used to be that when [a company] filed for bankruptcy, it was to restructure its debt and realign its operations in order to emerge alive," she said.

"Now it's almost impossible to restructure," she said, pointing out that a significant number of retailers that did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this year have eventually gone into liquidation.

Burden agreed with Kampler.

"Companies in bankruptcy aren't getting debtor-in-possession financing," he said. "This will continue in 2009."

Burden said his firm historically advised retailers to always re-evaluate the bottom 10% to 15% of their store base, or the poorest-performing stores in their portfolio, for closures.

But given the level of anxiety in the industry about a severe spending freeze, he said many retailers are already looking at closing up to 25% to 30% of their store base.

"Obviously fewer stores means less choice for consumers," he said.

"I think the whole consumer economy is being recalibrated," said Kampler. "It's something that's not been done in decades. I think it will be a three-year recalibration of consumer behavior and expectations."

While it's something that she believes is "unavoidable" and will hit the economy in terms of more job losses, she hopes it will also change the consumers' buy-at-all-cost shopping mentality.

"Consumers are used to thinking about buying 50 T-shirts, 10 pairs of jeans and 6 sneakers," she said. "Do we really need all this stuff? Ultimately we will all be buying less."

First Published: December 31, 2008: 1:37 PM ET

[goncalonr]

January 5, 2009
As Vacant Office Space Grows, So Does Lenders’ Crisis
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Vacancy rates in office buildings exceed 10 percent in virtually every major city in the country and are rising rapidly, a sign of economic distress that could lead to yet another wave of problems for troubled lenders.

With job cuts rampant and businesses retrenching, more empty space is expected from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles in the coming year. Rental income would then decline and property values would slide further. The Urban Land Institute predicts 2009 will be the worst year for the commercial real estate market “since the wrenching 1991-1992 industry depression.”

Banks and other financial companies have not had the problems with commercial properties in this recession that they have had with residential properties. But many building owners, while struggling with more vacancies and less rental income, will need to refinance commercial mortgages this year.

The persistent chill in lending from banks to the credit markets will make that difficult — even for borrowers who are current on their payments — setting the stage for loan defaults.

The prospect bodes ill for banks, along with pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and others holding the loans or pieces of them that were packaged and sold as securities.

Jeffrey DeBoer, chief executive of the Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group in Washington, is asking for government assistance for his industry and warns of the potential impact of defaults. “Each one by itself is not significant,” he said, “but the cumulative effect will put tremendous stress on the financial sector.”

Stock analysts say commercial real estate is the next ticking time bomb for banks, which have already received hundreds of billions of dollars in capital and other assistance from the federal government. Big banks — like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — each hold tens of billions of dollars in commercial real estate securities. The banks also invested directly in properties.

Regional banks may be an even bigger concern. In the last decade, they barreled their way into commercial real estate lending after being elbowed out of the credit card and consumer mortgage business by national players. The proportion of their lending that is in commercial real estate has nearly doubled in the last six years, according to government data.

Just as home loans were pooled, then carved up and sold to investors as securities over the last two decades, commercial property loans were repackaged for the financial markets. In 2006 and 2007, nearly 60 percent of commercial property loans were turned into securities, according to Trepp, a research firm that tracks mortgage-backed securities.

Now that the market for those securities has dried up, borrowers cannot easily roll over the loans that are coming due.

Many commercial property owners will face a dilemma similar to that of today’s homeowners who cannot easily get mortgage relief because their loans were sliced and sold to many different parties. There often is not a single entity with whom to negotiate, because investors have different interests.

By many accounts, building owners have been caught off guard by how quickly the market has deteriorated in recent weeks.

Rising vacancy rates were expected in Orange County, Calif., a center of the subprime mortgage crisis, and New York, where the now shrinking financial industry dominates office space. But vacancies are also suddenly climbing in Houston and Dallas, which had been shielded from the economic downturn until recently by skyrocketing oil prices and expanding energy businesses. In Chicago, brokers say demand has dried up just as new office towers are nearing completion.

“The economic recession is so widespread that we believe virtually every market in the country will see a rise in vacancy rates of between 2 and 5 percentage points by mid-2009,” said Bill Goade, chief executive of CresaPartners, which advises corporations on leasing and buying office space.

There is no relief in sight for Orange County, where subprime lenders and title companies once dominated the market but are now shedding space because their business has dried up, and big banks are now shrinking because of a wave of mergers. The vacancy rate has soared from 7 percent at the end of 2006 to 18 percent, a rate that the Tampa area should match this month, local real estate brokers say.

In New York, where rents had risen the highest as financial companies gobbled up office space, vacancy rates are floating above 10 percent for the first time in years.

What looked like the worst possible case a few weeks ago for Chicago now appears to be the most likely outcome, said Bill Rogers, a managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate broker. The vacancy rate, which was fairly stable at 10 percent, is now rising quickly and could hit 17 percent in 2009, he said. “A lot of companies are trying to shed excess space ahead of what is expected to be a worse market in 2009,” Mr. Rogers said.

Newmark Knight Frank, a real estate broker, expects the vacancy rate in Dallas to rise to 19 percent this year, from 16.3 percent.

Houston, like Dallas, held up while many other cities were showing the strains of an economic slowdown. But job growth and the brisk business of oil and gas exploration have come to an abrupt halt.

Vacant or unfinished shopping centers dot the highways. Among the 8.4 million square feet of office space under construction or recently completed in the metropolitan area, 80 percent has not been leased. As a result, the vacancy rate is 11 percent and rising.

“I see a wave of troubled assets coming out of Texas in the near future,” said Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics, a real estate research firm.

Effective rents, after free rent and other landlord concessions, have already started to fall and are expected to decline 30 percent or more across the country from the euphoric days of the real estate boom, according to real estate brokers and analysts.

That is making it all the more difficult for owners, who projected ever-rising rents when they financed their office buildings, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial property. Owners typically pay only the interest on loans of 5, 7 or 10 years and refinance the big principal payments necessary when the loans come due.

Without new financing, owners will have few options other than to try to negotiate terms with their lenders or hand over the keys to banks and bondholders.

Among commercial properties, the most troubled have been hotels and shopping centers, where anemic sales and bankruptcies by retailers are leading to more vacancies and where heavily leveraged mall operators, like General Growth Properties and Centro, are under intense pressure to sell assets. But analysts are increasingly worried about the office market.

The Real Estate Roundtable sees a rising risk of default and foreclosure on an estimated $400 billion in commercial mortgages that come due this year. In recent weeks, a group led by the New York developer William Rudin has pleaded with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and others to have the government include commercial real estate in a new $200 billion program intended to spur lending.

Mr. DeBoer, the roundtable’s leader, said building owners are by and large making their loan payments. It is the refinancing that is worrisome.

Most loans, he said, were made at 50 percent to 70 percent of property values. At the top of the market in 2006 and 2007, though, some owners took advantage of available credit and borrowed 90 percent or more of the value of a property, a strategy that works only in a rising market. Since then, property values have dropped 20 percent, Mr. DeBoer said.

Where possible, owners are trying to extend loans. A lender might agree to extend the term on a 10-year commercial mortgage, for example, if the borrower remains current on payments and can make an equity payment to compensate for the decline in the building’s value.

Already, $107 billion worth of office towers, shopping centers and hotels are in some form of distress, ranging from mortgage delinquency to foreclosure, according to a report by Real Capital Analytics.

New York, the biggest market by far, leads the pack with 268 troubled properties valued at $12 billion. But there are 19 more cities, including Atlanta, Denver and Seattle, with more than $1 billion worth of distressed commercial properties.

Analysts are especially concerned about buildings like 666 Fifth Avenue, One Park Avenue and the Riverton complex in New York, the Pacifica Tower in San Diego and the Sears Tower in Chicago, which were acquired in 2006 and 2007 with mortgage-backed financing based on future rents rather than existing income.

“Many of those buildings are basically underwater,” said Mr. Goade of CresaPartners. “The price they paid was too high to begin with. There’s no way anyone would lend that kind of money today.”

[goncalonr]

As More US Retailers Fail, Malls Could Be Next Victim

The dismal holiday shopping season may sink some retailers and could take down some U.S. malls struggling with rising vacancies, softening rents and their own large debt loads.



"This is probably going to go down as the worst season in history as far as retail sales," said Victor Calanog, director of research for real estate research firm Reis. "The difficulty of ascertaining what the effect would be at the property level is because we're already heading toward a train wreck."

At the end of the October, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) forecast that national chains would announce 6,100 store closings in 2008 and 3,100 in the first half of 2009.

That was before stores such as Circuit City Stores and KB Toys filed for bankruptcy.

But factoring in nonchain stores and others classified as retail by the Census Bureau, ICSC predicted 148,000 retail stores would close in 2008 and 73,000 would do so in the first half of 2009.

During this holiday season until Christmas, retail chains, which are among the best bankable mall tenants, saw apparel sales fall 19.7 percent, according to SpendingPulse, which tracks holiday sales.

Amazon Has Its Best Holiday Ever
Too Late? 25% of Stores at Risk for Bankruptcy
Retail Winners & Losers
Electronics and appliance chains sales dropped 26.7 percent, and luxury goods plummeted 34.5 percent.

A general rule of thumb is that a mall can stay afloat if 30 to 40 percent of its tenants remain in business, Calanog said.

But that percentage will have to be higher to sustain those malls that are burdened with debt, such as General Growth Properties [GGP 1.17 -0.04 (-2.89%) ], the No. 2 U.S. mall owner.

Leverage
"The leverage is what's going to kill them," said Bret Wilkerson, chief executive of Property & Portfolio Research.

That means that some malls will be grappling with less income while facing oppressive debt costs.

"You've got pressure from both sides here," Calanog said.

Reis forecasts that the fourth-quarter mall vacancy rate could top 7 percent, the highest since Reis began tracking regional mall performance in the start of 2000.



It sees fourth-quarter mall rents falling by 0.1 to 0.4 percent.

All retail properties, not just large malls, may see their rents fall by an average of 3.5 percent in 2008 and 5.5 percent in 2009, according to Property & Portfolio Research.

The research firm tracks "economic vacancy," or the amount of retail space that surpasses the amount that sales can support.

Economic vacancy now stands at about 13.5 percent and is expected to peak at 17.3 percent in the third quarter of 2009, "implying that one out of every six square feet needs to just go away," Wilkerson said.



The deteriorating U.S. retail landscape is expected to further divide the Class A malls from the lower-quality Class Bs and Cs, where tenants are likely to close stores first. See the accompanying video for a report on retailers in danger of bankruptcy.

Many of the Bs and Cs are susceptible to ailing department store anchor tenants such as Bon-Ton Stores [BONT 1.02 0.01 (+0.99%) ], Dillard's [DDS 3.60 0.14 (+4.05%) ] and Sears Holdings [SHLD 37.04 1.26 (+3.52%) ], according to analysts at Green Street Advisors.

Those malls include some operated by Glimcher Realty Trust and CBL & Associates Properties Inc, according to Green Street.

'Disproportionate Effect'

"If it's one of the anchor tenants, typically that has a disproportionate effect on the overall revenue streams of the location given that the anchors are involved in a lot of foot traffic to the center," said Steven Marks, managing director for Fitch Ratings.

Bankruptcies among retailers are likely to rise in the first quarter of 2009, Marks said.

But given the long leases and lengthy process of closing a store and winding down operations, its effect on the mall owners may not kick in until next year and 2010 when landlords are unable to release shuttered spaces.

To head off the impending crunch, mall owners may have to rethink their mix of customers by adding value-oriented stores to luxury malls and help their existing tenants.

"As the recession drags on, there is perhaps a greater likelihood that landlord will offer some concessions if it keeps the tenant out of bankruptcy," BMO Capital Markets analyst Paul Adornato said.

[goncalonr]

December 27, 2008
Downturn Ends Building Boom in New York
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Nearly $5 billion in development projects in New York City have been delayed or canceled because of the economic crisis, an extraordinary body blow to an industry that last year provided 130,000 unionized jobs, according to numbers tracked by a local trade group.

The setbacks for development — perhaps the single greatest economic force in the city over the last two decades — are likely to mean, in the words of one researcher, that the landscape of New York will be virtually unchanged for two years.

“There’s no way to finance a project,” said the researcher, Stephen R. Blank of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit group.

Charles Blaichman is not about to argue with that assessment. Looking south from the eighth floor of a half-finished office tower on 14th Street on a recent day, Mr. Blaichman pointed to buildings he had developed in the meatpacking district. But when he turned north to the blocks along the High Line, once among the most sought-after areas for development, he surveyed a landscape of frustration: the planned sites of three luxury hotels, all stalled by recession.

Several indicators show that developers nationwide have also been affected by the tighter lending markets. The growth rate for construction and land development loans shrunk drastically this year — to 0.08 percent through September, compared with 11.3 percent for all of 2007 and 25.7 percent in 2006, according to data tracked by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

And developers who have loans are missing payments. The percentage of loans in default nationwide jumped to 7.3 percent through September 2008, compared with 1 percent in 2007, according to data tracked by Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate research company.

New York’s development world is rife with such stories as developers who have been busy for years are killing projects or scrambling to avoid default because of the credit crunch.

Mr. Blaichman, who has built two dozen projects in the past 20 years, is struggling to borrow money: $370 million for the three hotels, which include a venture with Jay-Z, the hip-hop mogul. A year ago, it would have seemed a reasonable amount for Mr. Blaichman. Not now.

“Even the banks who want to give us money can’t,” he said.

The long-term impact is potentially immense, experts said. Construction generated more than $30 billion in economic activity in New York last year, said Louis J. Coletti, the chief executive of the Building Trades Employers’ Association. The $5 billion in canceled or delayed projects tracked by Mr. Coletti’s association include all types of construction: luxury high-rise buildings, office renovations for major banks and new hospital wings. Mr. Coletti’s association, which represents 27 contractor groups, is talking to the trade unions about accepting wage cuts or freezes. So far there is no deal.

Not surprisingly, unemployment in the construction industry is soaring: in October, it was up by more than 50 percent from the same period last year, labor statistics show.

Experience does not seem to matter. Over the past 15 years, Josh Guberman, 48, developed 28 condo buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan, many of them purchased by well-paid bankers. He is cutting back to one project in 2009.

Donald Capoccia, 53, who has built roughly 4,500 condos and moderate-income housing units in all five boroughs, took the day after Thanksgiving off, for the first time in 20 years, because business was so slow. He is shifting his attention to projects like housing for the elderly on Staten Island, which the government seems willing to finance.

Some of their better known and even wealthier counterparts are facing the same problems. In August, Deutsche Bank started foreclosure proceedings against William S. Macklowe over his planned project at the former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue. Kent M. Swig, Mr. Macklowe’s son-in-law, recently shut down the sales office for a condo tower planned for 25 Broad Street after his lender, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy in September. Several commercial and residential brokers said they were spending nearly half their days advising developers who are trying to find new uses for sites they fear will not be profitable.

“That rug has been pulled out from under their feet,” said David Johnson, a real estate broker with Eastern Consolidated who was involved with selling the site for the proposed hotel to Mr. Blaichman, Jay-Z and their business partners for $66 million, which included the property and adjoining air rights. Mr. Johnson said that because many banks are not lending, the only option for many developers is to take on debt from less traditional lenders like foreign investors or private equity firms that charge interest rates as high as 20 percent.

That doesn’t mean that all construction in New York will grind to a halt immediately. Mr. Guberman is moving forward with one condo tower at 87th Street and Broadway that awaits approval for a loan; he expects it will attract buyers even in a slowing economy. Mr. Capoccia is trying to finish selling units at a Downtown Brooklyn condominium project, and is slowly moving ahead on applying for permits for an East Village project.

Mr. Blaichman, 54, is keeping busy with four buildings financed before the slowdown. He has found fashion and advertising firms to rent space in his tower at 450 West 14th Street and buyers for two downtown condo buildings. He recently rented a Lower East Side building to the School of Visual Arts as a dorm.

Mr. Blaichman had success in Greenwich Village and the meatpacking district, where he developed the private club SoHo House, the restaurant Spice Market and the Theory store. He had similar hopes for the area along the High Line, where he bought properties last year when they were fetching record prices.

An art collector, he considered the area destined for growth because of its many galleries and its proximity to the park being built on elevated railroad tracks that have given the area its name. The park, which extends 1.45 miles from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street, is expected to be completed in the spring.

Other developers have shown that buyers will pay high prices to be in the area. Condo projects designed by well-known architects like Jean Nouvel and Annabelle Selldorf have been eagerly anticipated. In recent months, buyers have paid $2 million for a two-bedroom unit and $3 million for a three-bedroom at Ms. Selldorf’s project, according to Streeteasy.com, a real estate Web site.

“It’s one of the greatest stretches of undeveloped areas,” Mr. Blaichman said. “I still think it’s going to take off.”

In August 2007, Mr. Blaichman bought the site and air rights of a former Time Warner Cable warehouse. He thought the neighborhood needed its first full-service five-star hotel, in contrast to the many boutique hotels sprouting up downtown. So with his partners, Jay-Z and Abram and Scott Shnay, he envisioned a hotel with a pool, gym, spa and multiple restaurants under a brand called J Hotels. But since his mortgage brokers started shopping in late summer for roughly $200 million in financing, they have only one serious prospect for a lender.

For now, he is seeking an extension on the mortgage — monthly payments are to begin in the coming months — and trying to rent the warehouse. (He currently has no income from the property.)

It is perhaps small comfort that his fellow developers are having as many problems getting loans. Shaya Boymelgreen had banks “pull back” recently on financing for a 107-unit rental tower the developer is building at 500 West 23rd Street, according to Sara Mirski, managing director of development for Boymelgreen Developers. The half-finished project looked abandoned on two recent visits, but Ms. Mirski said that construction will continue. Banks have “invited” the developer to reapply for a loan next year and have offered interim bridge loans for up to $30 million.

Mr. Blaichman cuts a more mellow figure than many other developers do. He avoids the real estate social scene, tries to turn his cellphone off after 6 p.m. and plays folk guitar in his spare time.

For now, Mr. Blaichman seems stoic about his plight. At a diner, he polished off a Swiss-cheese omelet and calmly noted that he had no near-term way to pay off his debts. He exercises several times a week and tells his three children to curb their shopping even as he regularly presses his mortgage bankers for answers.

“I sleep pretty well,” Mr. Blaichman said. “There’s nothing you can do in the middle of the night that will help your projects.”

But even when the lending market improves — in months, or years — restarting large-scale projects will not be a quick process. A freeze in development, in fact, could continue well after the recession ends.

Mr. Blank of the Urban Land Institute said he has taken to giving the following advice to real estate executives: “We told them to take up golf.”

[goncalonr]

Closings would roil real estate market

By Donna Goodison | Monday, December 29, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

Photo by Angela Rowlings
The current spate of retailer bankruptcies and those expected in the new year - along with still-healthy companies limiting or stopping their expansions - could have a ripple effect on the commercial real estate market.

Burt P. Flickinger, managing director of New York consulting firm Strategic Resource Group, expects 2,000 to 3,000 U.S. malls and shopping centers to close in March and April.

General Growth Properties Inc., the nation’s second-largest shopping mall owner, already is in trouble. The cash-strapped Chicago company, which owns the Natick Collection and manages Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace under a lease with the city, in mid-November warned of a possible bankruptcy filing it if couldn’t refinance $900 million in debt. It’s now trying to sell its management rights for Faneuil Hall management rights along with two properties in New York and Baltimore.

“The easiest way of looking at which shopping centers or (real estate investment trusts) are real cause for concern for potential reorganization would be any whose stock has declined 80 or 90 percent or whose stock is trading in the $1 to $5 range,” Flickinger said.

Normally, the large banks and financing companies would have adequate funds to “backstop” the REITs and other retail center owners. But so many retailers and property owners are either “retracting or collapsing” at the same time that there’s insufficient credit to save every one, according to Flickinger.

“It’s a natural falling out,” he said.

The United States had twice as much retail selling space than any other industrialized nation at the end of the 1990s. And since then, it’s added 50 percent more selling space to an already over-stored situation. Led by Wal-Mart, the nation’s top eight retailers alone built more than a billion square feet of selling space in the last decade.

The commercial real estate market could take as hard a hit as the residential real estate market did under the mortgage crisis, according to Michael Tesler, founder of Retail Concepts, a Norwell-based retail consultancy.

“Landlords are going to face a difficult reality,” Tesler said. “They’re going to have to adjust their rents, and they’re going to have a real tough time filling vacancies going forward.”

[goncalonr]

UK banks face £70bn property bombshell
New research shows the commercial slump could trigger nationalisation for some lenders.

By Ben Harrington
Last Updated: 7:47PM GMT 28 Dec 2008

Britain's banks face up to £70bn of losses on commercial property loans, enough to force some of them into a further round of taxpayer bail-outs.

Investment bank Close Brothers forecasts massive writedowns in light of its forecast 50pc-60pc slump in commercial property values by the end of 2009 compared to the market’s 2007 peak. Most property experts believe such values have already dropped 30pc this year.

Such writedowns could again imperil banks’ capital ratios, potentially forcing them once more to go cap in hand to the Government.

UK banks are particularly exposed, having fuelled the commercial property sector boom by lending as much as 95pc of a property’s value to private investors.

Close Brothers refers to a study by De Montfort University, which found that the country’s leading banks have a total £250bn exposure to commercial property loans - twice the amount they had before entering the recession in the early 1990s. Some £83bn of the total was orginated at the peak of the market.

Arguing that commerical property values could more than halve, Close Brothers said: “The fall is higher than most observers estimate. No available debt finance and a limited number of investors with equity capital for acquisitions means that anything sold will only realise distressed valuations.”

The slump in valuations could force banks, such as Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS which have lent billions of pounds to commercial property investors into a fresh round of capital raisings.

“Commercial property is a major issue facing the banks during the next couple of years. We believe the scale of the problem has not been built into the recapitalisation programme developed by the UK Government.” said Gareth Davies, a managing director in Close Brothers’ restructuring division.

Last week debt rating agency Moody’s warned that it may downgrade the credit ratings of RBS – which is 56pc owned by the taxpayer – over concerns about its huge exposures to commercial property in the UK, Ireland and the US as well as the rapidly slowing UK economy.

Moody’s said it was reviewing RBS’ “B Bank Financial Strength Rating” and also its Aa1 senior long-term debt.

“The £20bn capital recently raised by the bank from the Government provides a significant buffer against additional writedowns and provisions, however, the ongoing earnings volatility and expected decline in asset quality indicate that the bank’s ratings are less consistent with other B BFSR rated financial institutions,” Moody’s said.

Problems surrounding banks’ exposure to commercial property comes as City analysts warn that RBS is set for a New Year profit warning.

If RBS takes an extremely aggressive attitude to the valuation of the assets it bought from Dutch bank ABN Amro last year, the Edinburgh-based bank may record losses of up to £28bn with its full-year figures, warned UBS analysts.

The potential losses at RBS emerged as it struggles to sell its insurance division, which includes the Direct Line and Churchill brands, for £7bn.

An RBS spokesman played down weekend reports that the bank is set to abandon the sale after receiving low-ball offers from private equity firms CVC Capital and BC Partners.

The spokesman said the bank was “continuing discussions with a number of parties”.

[goncalonr]

Vou começar a deixar aqui alguns artigos interessantes que procurem espelhar o peso dos sectores do imobiliário e construção na actual crise financeira.

Conto obviamente com o vosso precioso contributo!

Um abraço a todos.