Each year, the retail sector counts on big holiday sales to beef up its bottom line. The way things look now, retailers and retail property owners, developers and advisors are more likely to find lumps of coal in their stockings this year than candy and presents. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual estimate published [...]

One of the early signals of the credit crisis that has turned the U.S. financial markets upside down showed up in Orange County, Calif. There, the office market featured a 7 percent vacancy rate as recently as the fourth quarter of 2006–a number that has inflated to 20 percent today.The market is home to a [...]

A stop-gap funding measure passed by the Senate last Saturday may have significant implications for a mainstay of the United States industrial sector. A $630 billion federal funding bill would provide the Big Three automakers with $25 billion worth of low-cost loans for developing clean technology and re-tooling manufacturing plants. It may be too early [...]

At The Lodging Conference last week in Phoenix, those three little words–“I don’t know”–were on many hotel industry executives’ lips, as many seemed unsure of the industry’s path in light of the uncertainty caused by a Wall Street bailout plan that was still being negotiated, rising oil prices and concerns about how much further the [...]

The 1031 exchanges and tenant-in-common deals have had a rough time of it lately. Until last year, there was a booming volume of real estate investment sales, which provided the necessary folder for a healthy 1031 exchange and TIC market. In particular, as apartments went condo, the sellers needed a tax-advantageous exit strategy. Those days [...]

While the condominium market is pretty much in freefall in most metropolitan cities, it continues to experience relatively significant demand in New York City, and Anbau Enterprises Inc. plans to take advantage of the positive climate now that it has acquired a 55,000-square-foot parcel at 124 West 23rd St. in Manhattan for $19 million.The New [...]

Chestnut Hill and Northwoods Apartments, two multi-family communities accounting for an aggregate 650 residences in Middletown, Conn., have just come under new ownership. Entities operating as Northwoods Apartment Associates L.L.C. and Chestnut Apartment Associates L.L.C. took the two Class A properties, located approximately 15 miles south of Hartford, off the hands of Middletown-Oxford L.P. and [...]

KBS Real Estate Investment Trust I has announced that Home Depot USA Inc., has leased the entire 450,000-square-foot 170 Highland Park Drive building, a Class-A warehouse and distribution facility in Bloomfield, Conn., 12 miles northwest of Hartford. The lease accounts for the entire 170 Highland Park Drive facility. Home Depot will use [...]

As the credit crunch tightens its grip on lending, REIT One Liberty Properties Inc. is looking to take advantage of retail owners seeking sale-leaseback deals. In this month alone One Liberty has bought and leased back nine Office Depot locations for more than $53 million. Through wholly-owned subsidiaries, One Liberty Properties acquired a portfolio [...]

Bailout? The U.S. House of Representatives said, We don’t need no stinkin’ bailout. Just barely. Some Democrats and fewer Republicans voted aye; some Republicans and fewer Democrats voted nay. In the end, it was 228 against, 205 for. Predictably, the stock market tanked on word of the congressional cold shoulder. The Dow Jones Industrial [...]