Balance-Sheet Lenders Hold Key to Reigniting Hotel Property Sales
	Manhattan Office Market Eyes Rebound: Third-Quarter Report
	Wave of REIT Debt and Equity Raising Officially Over
	Will EPA Regulate Carbon Emissions in Absence of Climate Law?
	Annual Green Building Survey, Chance to Win Gift Card

Securitized lenders were heralded as a driving force in commercial real estate finance during the boom years, but in the down cycle the lenders who’ve held loans on their balance sheets through thick and thin will be the catalyst for establishing a floor on hotel valuations and resuscitating a weak property sales market.

That’s the opinion of Charles Tomb, president and CEO of Integrity Hospitality Advisors based in Stamford, Conn. “Once that first big bank or small regional bank starts to come out and say, 'OK, here is what we’re doing with our balance sheet,’ the others can’t be criticized,” remarked Tomb last Friday in Phoenix during a panel discussion at the 15th annual Lodging Conference. “The visibility of write-downs against their balance sheets — that’s the catalyst.”

Has the nation’s largest office market finally bottomed out?

It may be too early to call, but fresh research from real estate services firm FirstService Williams indicates that Manhattan office fundamentals may have stabilized during the third quarter.

Several key findings from the report back such a theory. Monthly leasing activity has nearly doubled since the end of May, for example, and this added leasing momentum held the overall availability rate, a measurement of vacancy, in check at 13.4% between the end of the second and third quarters.

Although REITs spent the last five months in a capital frenzy, raising some $20 billion in new debt and equity, the party is now over, according to a capital markets update released last week by real estate investment banking firm Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman based in New York.

“Even companies whose very survival was in question are now raising unsecured debt at attractive pricing,” stated the report by Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman analyst Chris Moyer. During the last nine months, REIT unsecured debt has tightened from an average of 1,200 basis points over Treasuries to 500 over Treasuries. The latest issuer was Brandywine, who raised $250 million at 7.6% earlier this week, according to the report.

Given that I’ve been on deadline this week, I admit that it wasn’t until yesterday evening on the commute home that I heard the piece on NPR. The long and the short of it? The EPA can regulate carbon emissions if Congress fails to pass climate legislation this fall. “And nobody wants the government to regulate carbon emissions,” said the voice on the radio.

National Real Estate Investor is once again investigating trends in the development and use of Green Buildings. Whether you own, develop or lease green buildings or not, we would like to include your opinions as an industry professional and valued National Real Estate Investor reader. Your answers will be kept completely confidential and used only in tabulation with others. As an added incentive, at the end of the survey you will be given the opportunity to win a $100 Visa gift card.

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