Golden State Portfolio Hits The Market

Back in December, CBRE won the pony show to sell off a 7 million square feet portfolio of our property. It’s officially hit the market and just in time for IOU’s.

Dimon: California Larger Risk Than Greece

Jamie Dimon, the chief of JP Morgan Chase has indicated that California poses a larger risk than Greece.
Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank’s annual meeting that “there could be contagion” if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments.
Dimon isn’t the first to [...]

California Unemployment Rate Hovers at 12.4%

Unemployment in California is sitting pretty steady, and now sits at 12.4%. December of 2008, the unemployment rate was a 8.7%. The job market continued to be extremely weak, with 80% of the states reporting an increase in unemployment.

The biggest sectors to lose jobs over the past twelve months are:

Construction, down 16.1%
Manufacturing, down 7.7%

The unemployment [...]

S&P Cuts California Bond Ratings

California’s situation is getting worse, and S&P has taken notice by dropping its bond ratings for the second time in a year. California now has to spend more money on interest for any bonds it issues, exacerbating the budget crisis in the state and putting more pressure on the government to raise taxes at an [...]

State of California Offloading Buildings To Fill Budget Shortfalls – What A Disaster

As economic pressures mount, the The State of California has retained CB Richard Ellis to sell off 17 of our buildings. The portfolio represents around 8 million square feet. The buildings include the Elihu M Harris building in Oakland, the Earl Warren building in San Francisco, and the PUC building in San Francisco. I’m sure [...]

Heading North – CA Unemployment Up To 12.5%; Santa Clara County 11.9%

The EDD released unemployment figures today, and the rate was up to 12.5% in October, a 20 basis point increase from September’s 12.3%. Last year, it was 8% in October signalling a 50% year-over-year increase! In raw numbers, year-over-year, we’ve shed nearly a million jobs in California alone total, nearly 700K if you look at [...]

FDIC Property Sales Approaching 90’s Levels

In 1994, the FDIC unloaded about $1.16B worth of land and buildings. In the first nine months of this year, the FDIC unloaded about $727M. 112 of the 1,706 properties sold so far this year have been in California, with a lion’s share taking place in Georgia where the FDIC has sold some 900 properties.
The [...]

Efforts To Raise Commercial Property Taxes Gaining

They have fantastic names, “Protect Homeowners and Close Corporate Tax Loopholes Act” and the “Education and Taxpayer Fairness Act”, but the consequences could be pretty dramatic.
The first would require reappraisals every three years on commercial property. The second would raise property taxes on commercial property by 55%.
If any of these get the required number of signatures, they [...]

AB1103 Takes Effect Soon – Requires Energy Rating Disclosures

AB1103 will be taking effect soon (January 1, 2010). If you’re not familiar with it, get to be soon.

The bill would require, on and after January 1, 2010, that a nonresidential
building owner or operator disclose Energy Star Portfolio Manager
benchmarking data and ratings, for the most recent 12-month period, to a
prospective buyer, lessee, or lender. After [...]

Forced Withholding on Contractors Defeated….So Far

The word is that the budget agreement that has been tentatively reached between the state legislature and the governor’s office is missing the provision that forces withholding on independent contractors. The final language is not yet available, but it seems that various organizations and individuals were successful in getting this provision removed. For all those [...]