- Stakeholders in the commercial real estate market are pushing lawmakers to devote at least $20 billion of financial rescue funds to a new Federal Reserve facility to unfreeze lending to the sector. Lobbyists for developers of shopping malls, office parks and high rises are warning lawmakers they may not be able to rollover tens of billions of dollars of debt set to mature this year if the government doesn't act.
- "In 2009, tens of billions of commercial real estate mortgage loans will come due, but under current conditions, there will be insufficient capacity to refinance the performing commercial real estate loans that are maturing, which could result in loan defaults," the coalition wrote to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the panel's ranking member.
- "Many steps are needed to address this issue, but the first and most significant action would be for policy makers to request that the Treasury Department provide, at a minimum, $20 billion in TARP funds to revive the broader private commercial mortgage markets," the coalition wrote to Frank and Bachus.
So are schools -
- If banks, insurance companies and automakers are getting a piece of Washington's bailout largesse, why not cash-strapped schools? That's the thinking of officials at a few hard-pressed school systems, who have set wheels in motion to get a share of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, intended for ailing financial institutions, and the economic stimulus package now before Congress.
- Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank, says many districts' financial woes can be traced to long-term teacher contracts that have locked them into automatic raises and growing pension expenditures without the flexibility to cut costs "in a smart way." "School districts have gotten themselves into this mess by making promises they can't fulfill," he says. "And now the chickens are coming home to roost." (it seems to be a national epidemic)
Money for nothing; chicks for free - welcome to America.
[Jan 6: New York Times - As Vacant Office Space Grows, So Does Lenders' Crisis]
[Mar 4, 2008: WSJ - Building Slowdown Goes Commercial]
6 comments:
Don't forget the porn bailout!
http://tinyurl.com/axwswa
It's a link to a news article from the Atlanta Journal. Relatively safe for viewing at work.
I've seen that article on the porn bailout. It's really sad that it takes Larry Flynt to shine a light on the absurdity of this.
It is funny - readers send me stories all the time; almost never do I get the same story from 2 readers. The porn bailout I got from like 9 readers. This tells me what my readers do when they are not reading the blog ;)
You guys...You make my day a little bit less miserable!
TM.. I posted a couple of Mall REITS on one of your other articles. Those were two heavily financed commercial REITS. In fact they probably are good short candidates on a run up. The problem with these REITS is that the financing was bundled up by Blackstone (BX) and Fortress (FIG) et al and sold to endowments, colleges, local and state government retirement funds. (Sound familar doesn't it... Seems the same types of buyers keep showing up as 'All Day Suckers').. At any rate, some of the commercial REITS cannot get financing and the loans are due this year. In the case of GGP I believe major loans are due in Feb! Clearly, foreclosure would just compound the same problems with these entities as we have had with the financial markets.Someone has to pay those retirements...
jegan
Yep, look at the last post today - I posted your other name today. GGP I've been following for quite a while.
FIG is a disaster
shows you what many hedge funds would be valued at if they were public ;)
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