Thoughts

Senator Dennis Hollingsworth Selected as ACEC California’s Legislator of the Year

2009-12-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO – Senator Dennis Hollingsworth-R has been named “Legislator of the Year” by the American Council of Engineering Companies – California (ACEC California). Sen. Hollingsworth is senator for the 36th District, which includes portions of San Diego and Riverside counties.

Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth received the award because of his support for the expansion of public-private partnerships (P3s), and other project delivery methods designed to make California more competitive. Senator Hollingsworth is focused on job creation and emphasizes the need to reform a broken regulatory process that wastes taxpayer dollars and makes it more difficult to build important water storage facilities, roads and schools.

“I’m honored to be given this award by ACEC California, an organization that is dedicated to protecting the public interest while creating economic growth for our state through private sector job creation,” said Sen. Hollingsworth.
“Good paying jobs are important to the health of every community in California. We can create and keep jobs here if we give the private sector the tools to grow,” he added. Hollingsworth pointed to P3s and other widely accepted delivery methods as critical for the creation of sustainable jobs in the consulting engineering and surveying industries in California.

Paul Meyer, Executive Director of ACEC California, pointed to Sen. Hollingsworth’s emphasis on eliminating waste and unnecessary bureaucracy as one of the other key reasons he was selected for this year’s award.

“Senator Dennis Hollingsworth is a pragmatic and dedicated leader in the California Senate – one who seeks to cut through waste to provide reasonable legislation to help our economy grow. He also acutely realizes the importance of design build and P3s to our state’s future as well as the vital role played by the consulting engineering and surveying industries in the overall economic development of California.”

Senator Hollingsworth was elected to the State Legislature in 2000 and to the Senate in 2002 and was elected to his current post of Senate Republican Leader in February of this year. He is a resident of Murrieta in Riverside County.

US Office Markets Waiting on a Train

2009-11-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

US Office Markets Waiting on a Train

According to its 2010 US National Economic and Property Market Forecast, the US office market still trails the overall economy and as a lagging indicator, the economic recovery train's caboose won't be pulling into the station until sometime in the second half of 2010. Before that happens, Jones Lang LaSalle's research experts see overall employment losses finally bottoming out in mid 2010 but leasing demand is likely to remain stagnant through next year and office market vacancies will near 20 percent by late 2010. One factor to watch when job growth does turn positive -- this won't immediately result in renewed space demands by corporate occupiers. The reason -- Jones Lang LaSalle estimates that 7-8 percent of the space available nationally is "shadow space" meaning that corporate users are simply banking that square footage for anticipated future expansion. Among the good news expected next year: a rebirth (in more conservative form) of the CMBS market and up to a 50 percent increase in property transaction volume.

Vornado Tree Lighting Ceremony!!! December 1, 2009 @ 4:30pm

2009-11-06T11:41:00.001-08:00

Live Performance by Emily Osment (Hannah Montana & High School Musical) and Guest Appearance by Patrick Willis and Sourdough Sam (The Mascot) from the SF 49ers. More Information Below (Website):

http://www.vnooffice.com/spotlight/tree_lighting_09_tenants/

See You There!!!!!

Camden Property Trust's Mortgage Foreclosure Forgiveness program

2009-08-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Last month, the Mortgage Bankers Association (www.mbaa.org) released data showing that home foreclosures have now spread to borrowers with good credit. A record 12 percent of mortgage holders are behind with payments, according to the MBA and the volume of loans now seriously delinquent and headed for foreclosure total one million. The foreclosure wave isn’t expected to crest until the end of 2010 when the bulk of low teaser rate adjustable mortgages reset, suggesting that the percentage of homeowners with good credit headed into foreclosure is set to dramatically increase.

For some homeowners, the proverbial handwriting is on the wall. For others there is still time to minimize the all-important impact on their credit ratings.

“The realization that a mortgage increase is too much in this market downturn should be the tipping point. Unfortunately, many homeowners miss the opportunity to take some pre-foreclosure housing decisions to prevent a one year credit blip from becoming a 10 year slog back from a total credit meltdown,” according to John Selindh, Vice President-Marketing, Camden Property Trust.

Camden Property Trust (www.camdenliving.com) -- one of the country’s largest owners of apartments -- is helping homeowners who are close to the edge or who may have a recent foreclosure on their record find quality housing by giving local community managers the power to approve applications which, in the past, might not have passed the company’s criteria. Applicants with a foreclosure and negative credit on their record in the prior 12 months qualify for this program but they cannot have collections for utility bills or a prior apartment eviction on their credit reports. They must also pass a background check.

The REIT rolled out its Mortgage Foreclosure Forgiveness program in Tampa, Fla., several months ago and it was so well received it has since been expanded to the entire state. Now, Camden is making a similar program available to prospective residents of its luxury communities on both coasts.

“Basically we are working with people who have been forced out of their homes by forgiving that foreclosure and providing access to an apartment home that they can afford and might not otherwise be able to qualify for,” said Selindh. “We’ve found that many of these people were good renters before they were enticed over to home ownership by artificially low teaser mortgages, and we are betting that when they get an opportunity to put themselves back on a more affordable track, they’ll be good renters again.”

Some of the people who are capitalizing on Camden’s offer have already gone to great lengths to keep their record clean by managing credit cards and other debt so that it didn’t get out of hand. Their good credit enables them to move in to one of Camden’s affordable apartment communities without having to make the traditional large deposit required of those with foreclosure or serious credit issues.

“We know that there is not a lot of cash around so we are trying to work with these people to help them move in,” added Selindh. “The really unfortunate ones are those who put off the decisions to restructure their loan or ownership, and used all of their savings and credit to try and stave off the inevitable foreclosure. Obviously with those kind of devastated credit records, it is difficult to find any housing right now.”

Camden is particularly trying to get the word out on Foreclosure Forgiveness to homeowners in Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona, markets which have seen the highest default rates on even fixed rate mortgages. “We believe that these markets will see a tremendous uptick in foreclosure in coming months,” said Selindh, “but there is still time for those facing foreclosure to avoid a total meltdown. We are among a number of companies who are trying to provide a softer landing.”

Waiting for the other shoe to drop...

2009-07-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

What Mark Grinis, Ernst & Young partner and leader of the firm's Distressed Real Estate team, recently described as the "dog days of real estate distress" may be coming to an end. Two stories in the news today clearly suggest that the perfect storm of a U.S. economy on the skids, an increase in commercial loan delinquencies, the weight of maturing commercial loans and the lack of adequate refinancing options, signals a crisis of 1980s proportions is ready to hit the nation's real estate lenders.

A story currently on the Dow Jones Newswire cites several major banks including SunTrust, KeyCorp and Wells Fargo are all reporting or projecting higher nonperforming loan portfolios in their commercial real estate lending operations. Real estate watchers have been "waiting for the other shoe to drop" on distress for more than six months now and it seems we are close to a crisis.

It's not hard to see why. Last week, Moody's reported that commercial real estate values around the U.S. dropped in May and its Commercial Property Price indexes had fallen by more than a third from their peak in October 2007. No wonder then, that buildings of all stripes are being handed back to lenders, even in markets previously considered recession proof -- like New York City. Delinquencies on commercial real estate loans averaged 6.4 percent last quarter, almost double what it was a year earlier and four times the levels witnessed in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve.

In San Francisco, Hines Interests this week confirmed it would hand back the keys to 333 Bush Street after a large law firm and anchor tenant defaulted on its 250,000 square foot lease and filed for bankruptcy and two high profile hotels, the Four Seasons on Market Street and Nob Hill's Stanford Court are reportedly in default. These are likely just the tip of an iceberg that will shake the foundations of real estate markets throughout the country.

However, the damage to the broader U.S. economy is unlikely to be anywhere near as bad as we've already witnessed from the subprime market fiasco since the housing mortgage market is roughly three times bigger than the commercial real estate loan market. And a lot of commercial real estate owners either sold off major assets near the peak in 2007 and are sitting on cash or maintained some discipline and didn't lever up acquisitions with cheap short term debt. Nevertheless, hold on to your hats, it's going to be a bumpy ride for the balance of this year and probably well into next.

2009-07-16T15:01:00.001-07:00

Arizona Enacts Cutting-Edge PPP Enabling Law

Arizona steps up its embrace of PPPs for transportation infrastructure in new "state of the art" legislation.

http://reason.org/blog/show/arizona-enacts-cutting-edge-pp

2009-07-13T15:52:00.001-07:00

Global downturn, with uneven economic recovery in global & regional property markets? http://www.joneslanglasalle.com/Pages/GlobalMarketPerspective.aspx

Economic development is THE real estate issue.

2009-06-22T12:38:00.001-07:00

California unemployment hit new highs today. Obviously that is the mother of pretty much all of the mounting problems we face.

So, what is the prognosis?

The attached video is not sophisticated and certainly didn't cost a lot of money to produce - but it is the shortest and most effective summary of the economic development wars that are now forming here in the west. Forget vacancies, CMBS failures and all of the "details."

Perhaps this is the overall issue more than anything else is going to have the most impact the the Western States commercial and residential real estate industry in the next few years.

And I'm wiling to bet it's coming to a neighborhood near you some time soon.

http://ix1.mbxserver.net/ac/lt/t_go.php?i=40&e=MzU2NTcy&l=-http--www.georgerunner.com/2009/06/17/california-taxes-and-regulates-businesses-into-going-to-nevada

Public Art Pieces Enliven the Mission Bay Waterfront

2009-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

A pair of new public art pieces enliven the Mission Bay waterfront. Shorenstein Properties (www.shorenstein.com) unveiled two world class pieces of art this week at its 409-499 Illinois Street property (http://www.409and499illinoisstreet.com/) in Mission Bay, home to Biotech pioneer, FibroGen (http://www.fibrogen.com/). The pieces include 'I'm Alive', a major sculpture by British artist Tony Cragg: http://www.gallen.com/releases/090612.Shorenstein.pdf

Gallen & the Changing Nature of Media

2009-06-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Recently, Tim Gallen appeared on Globest.TV to discuss how Gallen.Neilly creates market positioning and media strategies for clients like Ernst & Young. The interview was at the request of Globest.TV and covers a wide variety of common sense advice on how companies can approach and raise their competitive profile by executing a strategic image campaign:

http://www.globest.tv/featured-videos/gallen-the-changing-nature-of-media/

New Media 2.0

2009-05-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

www.gallen.com/releases/09.05.21.ACEC.pdf

Turn up your volume-

2009-04-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

The importance of shaking up the way you communicate with friends, clients, and various publics has never been more pressing than it is today. The emergence of the new media is just the beginning of an individual driven communications revolution, not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. If a company is going to be successful in getting its message out, defining itself in the marketplace and differentiating itself from competition, it is going to have to allow the agents of change to both review and adapt the way it presets itself to the world. There are many new techniques that at first are taken as being capricious and even silly, but the truth is that we are not in a world driven as it has been for so many generations, strictly by news media. If you do not have a mastery in understanding of techniques like blogging, Twittering, filing your opinions online, then you will be limited to one voice in a world that now requires many voices. So ‘Google’ the words ‘Blog’, ‘Twitter’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’. If you haven’t already, you might find just how easy it is to turn up your volume.