CBRE Capital Markets has arranged $181 million in financing for the first two phases of Sentinel Square, an office development in Washington, D.C., that will eventually total 1.3 million square feet. CBRE arranged the funding on behalf of Trammell Crow, Crow Holdings Capital Partners and Cottonwood Partners.

Though the sale of Grubb & Ellis Inc. to BGC Partners Inc. and Grubb’s bankruptcy filing on Monday bring a harsh clarity to the troubled company’s recent travails, it might be a mistake to assume that we can now, finally, see where the situation is heading.

Mack-Cali Realty Corp. and Winthrop Realty Trust have attached themselves to a 1.7 million square-foot commercial real estate portfolio in Stamford, Conn., with their acquisition of a $40 million senior mezzanine loan position in the capital stack of the group of seven Class A office and multi-family assets.

Addressing the National Association of Home Builders, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged the critical role the single-family sector plays in the economic recovery, and said that the troubles in the single family industry resulted in part from constricted financing availability.

“Debt” is going to be the name of the game for the European real estate markets in 2012, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2012, the industry forecast published by PwC and the Urban Land Institute.

BRE DDR Retail Holdings L.L.C., a joint venture between Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII L.P. and DDR Corp., has just spent $1.4 billion on a 47-property retail portfolio formerly owned by EPN Group.

Developers are finding ready financing for their projects, including $66 million for a D.C. multi-family, $50 million for Las Vegas retail and $70 million for a Michigan apartment complex.

Behringer Harvard Multifamily REIT I Inc. has just entered into a new co-investment partnership with one of the world’s largest pension funds, advised by Heitman L.L.C., a multinational real estate investment management firm with more than $23 billion of assets.

The latest idea to stave off Europe’s woes is the creation of a permanent European Stability Mechanism. U.S. purchasing and supply managers have reason to be optimistic. And Nevada and California are pooling resources to investigate robo-signing shenanigans.

TF Cornerstone has secured $265 million in financing from a consortium of four banks for the development of 4545 Center Blvd, an 850-unit luxury apartment high-rise that will sprout up in Long Island City, Queens.