Articles About Financing

Home equity loan delinquencies reached a record high of 3.52 percent during the first quarter of 2009, according to the American Bankers Association.  That contrasts with the 3.03 percent reported during the fourth quarter of 2008.  Late payments on loans climbed to a record 1.89 percent. Home equity loans also are partly to blame for […]

Cleaning up the mess left by Lehman Brothers’ collapse and bankruptcy involves salvaging a national portfolio of 900 properties valued at $16 billion.  What the advisory firm overseeing Lehman’s bankruptcy achieves could be a framework for the strategies that big banks across the country use as they deal with their own troubled assets whose loans […]

The Treasury Department has issued new tax rules that make it easier for commercial real estate owners to restructure loans on distressed properties that were package by Wall Street and sold as CMBS.  The real estate industry, which lobbied hard for the changed rules, were generally happy but wary that it could open a can […]

Commercial real estate investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude before jumping in and buying distressed assets, according to an Ernst & Young study.  “We haven’t seen many portfolio transactions so far,” says the study’s author, Chris Seyfarth, who is national director of E&Y’s non-performing loans.  “Given the size and the magnitude of the problem with […]

With 28 million people and a $376 billion economy, Saudi Arabia provides its citizens with subsidized goods, services, healthcare, housing and education to assure a stable political system and long-term allegiance to the House of Saud, according to Rochdi Younsi, director in the Middle East and Africa practice at the Eurasia Group.  An expert on […]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has started selling insurance coverage on foreclosed homes occupied by distressed borrowers with the goal of making money from banks hurt by the mortgage market collapse.  These policies are riskier than usual home coverage because the properties may be neglected or vandalized. “It’s part of the standard practice of Berkshire, which […]

Despite positive news about rising home sales, the number of Americans with under water mortgages might be as worrying as anything else happening in the economy. When people owe more on their mortgages than their home is worth, it limits their ability to pursue new opportunities because they cannot afford to sell.  In Chicago, First […]

Federal Reserve chairman and Great Depression scholar Ben Bernanke will stay in his job for another four years if President Barack Obama gets his way.  There likely will be some contentious moments during the reconfirmation hearings as Senators grill him about bailing out Wall Street institutions deemed too big to fail.  He is expected to […]

An interesting comment in an article that some might have missed.  GlobeSt.com reports that Eastern Consolidated CEO Peter Hauspurg said  “part of the whole thing that’s keeping these banks glued up with the CMBS is the fact [that] no one has been able to unravel the loans they understood when they made them.” Hauspurg noted […]

In terms of commercial property investment, one positive sign is from firms buying properties to use for their own business operations.  Called user-buyers, these investors have proven they are able to get money from banks to spend on property acquisitions — a relative rarity nowadays.  Those who do not need a loan already have earmarked their […]