Congress has paused for Rosh Hashanah, but the game isn’t over yet. President Bush went on TV early this morning to say, “No, really, you have to do something.” Investors either believe that before long Congress will do something, or they were out looking for bargains today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shooting back [...]

With the U.S. House of Representatives not scheduled to be in session again until Thursday, the stage today was set for lots of talk but no action, temporarily at least, on the $700 billion federal legislation intended to rescue a financial system in crisis. The House yesterday defeated the bill 228-205, triggering a [...]

Just days before the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is due to release an update on the construction timetable and costs of rebuilding the 16-acre World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, new reports have surfaced claiming the planned transit hub is $500 million over budget and five years behind schedule. The [...]

About three weeks after being seized by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and put in conservatorship, beleaguered housing mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae revealed that they have been notified of new investigations that are underway. Late last week, the two entities received federal grand jury subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for [...]

ING Clarion Partners appointed Florencio Beccar as managing director of its new office in São Paulo, Brazil. Beccar established ING’’s investment management office in Italy and headed the firm’s acquisition team in Spain. He most recently served as managing director and portfolio manager for the ING Real Estate Southern European Fund, and before that was [...]

While the retail sector netted an annual price appreciation rate in June over the same period a year ago, the increase was modest at only 0.6 percent, according to the June results of the S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indices. That return is markedly lower than retail’s peak of 15.1 percent in June 2007.To that end, [...]

It’s no surprise office property sales are down. While the 77 percent skid in the first half of the year from the same period last year was largely attributable to The Blackstone Group’s $39 billion blockbuster acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust and the resale of many Equity Office assets to other parties last year, [...]

The federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the beginning of September may have roiled the markets, but it has a positive side, too: It presents an opportunity to help ease the severity of the housing crisis and strengthen investor confidence, according to a paper by Glev Nechayev, senior economist for Torto Wheaton [...]

August saw the sales of significant industrial properties jump slightly from the previous month, but price tags for such assets were lean, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc.’s latest Capital Trends Monthly report on the sector. The value of closed transactions came in at only $1.6 billion, and while another $1.5 billion worth of deals [...]

The hospitality market pulled in $8.7 billion in sales during the first half of 2008, the lowest level among major property types and down 77 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.’s second quarter “Capital Markets Update.” The cap rate hit 8 percent for full-service hotels, a 50-basis-point [...]