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Greece, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Latvia and Mexico are among the nations in danger of sovereign debt default, putting the global economic recovery from the recession at risk.  Sovereign debt is the debt of nations.  For example, U.S. Treasuries are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the government; similarly, other countries sell bonds to […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is starting to look at ways to back off from the central bank’s heroic efforts to keep the nation’s economy afloat through the financial crisis of the past 18 months. The trick to raising short-term interest rates, which have been at historic lows for more than a year, is to […]

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) wants to scrap Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of an entirely new mortgage-financing system. According to Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and who previously supported the programs, “The committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current forms and coming up with […]

A building boom is transforming the core of a fabled city that endured decades of war and turmoil.  It’s Beirut, where battered  Ottoman-era building are being restored and high-rise apartment towers with mirrored facades are rising along the Mediterranean waterfront. Beirut’s unprecedented building boom is transforming Lebanon into an investment haven at a time when […]

A long-term steelmaker is not fleeing Chicago for Canada, thanks to a deal in which A. Finkl & Sons Co. purchased six properties adjacent to the Verson Steel site on the southeast side for just $1. Finkl, which has been in business since 1879, will move its headquarters from the western edge of Lincoln Park […]

Chicago existing home sales soared by 33 percent in December, although the statistics were flat for the year, according to research by the Illinois Association of Realtors. The average home sale price fell approximately 18.3 percent to $196,000 when compared with 2008.  During 2009, a total of 69,290 Chicago-area homes were sold, a 0.2 percent […]

Olgga Architects took an inventive approach to creating student housing in Le Havre, France, by building a 100-unit complex using recycled shipping containers.  The result is stylish student housing that is portable, affordable, durable and eco-friendly. Called the “Crou”, the 2,841-meter (30,700 SF) pyramidal structure stacks the shipping containers on top of each other. The […]

Washington, D.C. office leasing is on the upswing for the first time in a year.  Not surprisingly for the District, the rise in leasing activity is driven primarily by expanding federal agencies. A study by CB Richard Ellis of fourth quarter leasing activity showed that the private sector is again leasing space they had subleased […]

David Tepper’s shrewd bet that the nation would avoid a second Great Depression inspired him to buy bank shares at rock-bottom rates, a move that has earned his Appaloosa Management hedge fund an estimated $7 billion worth of profit during 2009.  Last winter, Tepper invested heavily in Bank of America stocks selling for $3 a […]

London has overtaken Washington, D.C., as the preferred city for commercial real estate investment,  primarily because investors believe that prices have bottomed out and the time to get into that market is now. The British capital has overtaken the previous favorites of Washington, D.C., and New York, according to a survey conducted by the Association […]