Health Care REIT, Inc. is an equity real estate investment trust that invests across the full spectrum of senior housing and health care real estate, including independent living/continuing care retirement communities, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals and medical office buildings.
"Opportunity funds concentrating on distress intend to take advantage of the seized-up debt markets in a few different ways. Many funds are buying debt at a discount from investment banks stuck with billions of dollars of loans they can't securitize. Other investors believe loose underwriting and over-leveraged properties will soon lead to maturity defaults, essentially defaults that occur when a landlord can't refinance a property because it isn't worth the loan coming due or because a landlord can't come up with a slug of equity that lenders want. Those funds intend to buy up that real estate, or at least gain a position in the assets."It will be interesting to see if the capital markets come back into time to avoid a commercial real estate crash. The loose underwriting standards we saw eighteen months ago are gone (for the foreseeable future). But most commercial property owners have enough cash flow to pay the monthly debt payments.
Class A. Most prestigious buildings competing for premier office users with rents above average for the area. Buildings have high quality standard finishes, state of the art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence.BOMA goes further with International definitions:
Class B. Buildings competing for a wide range of users with rents in the average range for the area. Building finishes are fair to good for the area. Building finishes are fair to good for the area and systems are adequate, but the building does not compete with Class A at the same price.
Class C. Buildings competing for tenants requiring functional space at rents below the average for the area.
Investment. Investment quality properties are those that are unique in their location in the best metropolitan markets in the world, their design and construction quality, the solidity of the tenants and the tenant markets that they serve and the outstanding building management that is responsible for operating and maintaining them. These properties stand out as leaders not only within their own metropolitan areas but also within the international investment community. Investment properties usually contain state of the art mechanical, electrical, life safety, elevator and communications systems. Their finishes are of the highest standards and they often provide the occupants with a mix of amenities - in variety and quality - that is exceptional. Often they house a lead tenant for whom the property is named and usually they are located in a premier metropolitan area. Investment grade properties need not be considered to be "trophy" material but trophy properties are usually investment grade.Of course, Wikipedia has an entry: Wikipedia's Class A Office Space
Institutional. Institutional grade properties are those of sufficient size and stature that they merit attention by large national or international investors, hence the name. These properties are of good design and construction, although they are rarely monumental in design or the use of construction materials. They are typically large. They may be located in secondary metropolitan areas, but invariably they will have a very stable tenant base.
Speculative. Speculative properties usually will conform to popular design conventions (at the time that they are constructed), but without the use of exceptional materials or construction methods. The design and construction of these properties emphasizes functionality, in contrast with aesthetics or image and the design rarely reflects the image of any particular tenant or occupant. To attract national or international attention, speculative properties must be relatively large, although minimum size requirements are lower for properties located in premier office markets. They are often occupied by multiple tenants.
The new classification aims to divide the office stock into three classes according to a number of objective criteria. The classification was developed with the participation of professionals from the Construction, Property Management and Office Service industries. The principal difference of the new classification from the previous one is the division of stock into А, В+ and В- classes. The major difference is also in giving a more structured criteria for modern office building classification. Leading real estate consultants: CB Richard Ellis Noble Gibbons, Colliers International, Cushman and Wakefield, Stiles and Riabokobylko and Jones Lang LaSalle have prepared a new classification of office buildings, dividing modern quality office stock into 3 classes: A, B+ and B-.Square Feet started this with his (or her) Guide to Office Building Classifications.
In Russia, the volume of shopping space per 1,000 inhabitants makes up about 420 square feet, according to Maxim Karbasnikoff, European Director, Russia, at brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. In contrast, there is 25,758 square feet of shopping space available for every 1,000 people in the U.S.It makes me want to head out to the Chestnut Hill Mall and mark off my own 5 feet square of space in the courtyard.
This graphic was developed in conjunction with a paper by Kristopher Gerardi, Adam Shapiro, and Paul S. Willen, "Subprime Outcomes: Risky Mortgages, Homeownership Experiences, and Foreclosures," which presents the first rigorous assessment of the homeownership experience of subprime borrowers, using data on subprime mortgages, foreclosures, and house prices from 1989 to 2007 in Massachusetts cities and towns.Thanks to Boston.com's Real Estate Now for pointing out this map:
"Subprime Facts: What (We Think) We Know about the Subprime Crisis and What We Don't," by Christopher L. Foote, Lorenz Goette, Paul S. Willen, and Kristopher Gerardi.
Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States (Federal Reserve Bank of New York).
Given fears that a sagging economy and a crippled credit market might wreak havoc on the commercial property market, real-estate investment trusts delivered surprisingly strong earnings for the first quarter, with many companies beating analysts' estimates.The implosion of the residential markets is taking down builders: Falling Prices Hit Builder Horton - Home Cancellations, Write-Downs Spur $1.31 Billion Loss.
The investigators are finding that Countrywide's loan documents often were marked by dubious or erroneous information about its mortgage clients, according to people involved in the matter. The company packaged many of those mortgages into securities and sold them to investors, raising the additional question of whether Countrywide understated the risks such investments carried.
| Alexandria | ARE |
| AMB Property | AMB |
| Annaly Capital Management | NLY |
| Developers Diversified Realty | DDR |
| Essex Property | ESS |
| Federal Realty | FRT |
| First Industrial Realty | FR |
| General Growth Properties | GGP |
| Macerich | MAC |
| Mack-Cali | CLI |
| National Retail Properties | NNN |
| ProLogis | PLD |
| PS Business Parks | PSB |
| Regency Centers | REG |
| Simon Property Group | SPG |
| Taubman Centers | TCO |
| Weingarten Realty | WRI |
The city saw $57.3 million in office-building sales during the three-month period, compared to $4.3 billion a year ago. Total commercial sales -- which included offices, retail, apartments, industrial and hotel properties -- fell 97 percent to $152.6 million during the quarter, compared to $5.2 billion in the same period in 2007, according to figures from Real Capital Analytics, a real estate research firm in New York.Sellers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the debt markets to get back to some normalcy. Buyers are still thirsting for deals, but can't line up the debt to get the deals done. If the debt markets do not come back soon and sellers get tired of waiting, then prices will start dropping .
The National composite reported annual price appreciation of 7.0%, versus January of 2007, up from the +6.7% reported in December's data, but still significantly below from this cycle’s peak of +14.5%, reported in June of 2006. . . The Northeast had the highest return over the month and has the highest annual return over the past 12 months. Each of the regions reported lower monthly returns in January December/November returns.The raw data for the Index Values is in this Excel spreadsheet.
Total assets at U.S. commercial banks swelled to $11.12 trillion in early April, up from $9.94 trillion a year ago, according to Federal Reserve data that are updated every Friday. Last month, the growth rate of bank assets hit its fastest growth pace in 28 years.As Mark states, one of the problems that occurred in the CMBS market was that lenders were not keeping an interest in the loans they originated. They were just producing the paper to package into a stream of CMBS offerings. Banks forgot that they were making loans and that the loans would have to be managed.
"Every big bank has a risk management team whose job it is to keep the banks out of trouble. The teams use complex computers to guide the banks away from financial danger. But as the global credit crisis shows, those models failed to keep many major U.S. and foreign financial firms from making bad bets on mortgages."
"REITs have to follow certain rules in order to avoid most corporate income taxes. Chiefly, they must pay out 90% of their income to shareholders in dividends. Many REITs are content to own buildings and collect rent. Others, like Boston Properties, have also moved into developing their own buildings. But Cooper gets 45% of his earnings from sources like managing real estate for pension funds, lending to bankrupt retailers and buying distressed properties. Only a few other REITs, such as Developers Diversified and ProLogis, have branched out like this.""So in 1998 Cooper had a brainstorm: go into business with pension funds, developing and managing shopping centers for funds such as New York Common Retirement Fund and G.E. Pension Trust. Here was a bunch that was happy with returns as low as 6%, if the investments were safe. Many also were required to have some capital in real estate. Typical partnership deal: The pension funds contribute 85% of the project cost, Kimco the remainder. Once the center is built Kimco earns a fee for managing the properties, around 4% of rents."
