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 [...]

Congressional Oversight Panel Issues Report on CRE

The Congressional Oversight Panel, chaired by Elizabeth Warren has issued its February report, and it’s focus is on “Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability”.
It’s a long read (189 pages), but from the executive summary here are some key points:
Between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will [...]

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 [...]

The Invisible Hand: 18% of Personal Income From Handouts

David Rosenberg, the chief economist of Gluskin Sheff, and former Chief Economist for Merrill Lynch, has put out this chart. Take this back to normal levels, and then tell me what the real GDP and unemployment numbers are please…

[via Business Insider]

Government Moving Into Help Finance Construction of Science Parks

A new Senate bill that just passed committee would drive the creation of more science parks around the U.S. Specifically, the bill would allow the Secretary of Commerce to guarantee up to 80% (!) of loans over $10m for the construction of science parks.
Whoa, good thing that. After all, we don’t have nearly enough vacant [...]

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 [...]

Legislative Update: Congress Looking To Raise Carried Interest Tax

Congress is working on reforming (raising) taxes and one of the areas it is focused in on is carried interests. We discussed this earlier in March.
This would cause real estate partnerships (GPs) to be taxed at ordinary income levels rather than the capital gains rate of 15%. Here’s an email I received from NAIOP spelling [...]

Property Tax Appeals: The Impact on Government, Landlord, and Tenants

Over 1,000 San Francisco property owners have filed petitions with the City of San Francisco to have their property taxes reduced. The same is for virtually every other city as property prices have fell dramatically.
Jose Guevara is property manager for Crocker Galleria, which has requested a 62 percent reduction in its assessed value, from $370.3 [...]

Citibank Forced to Resume Lending on Failed Mall Project

If a court in New York can come to this conclusion, can a court in California come to the same? That would probably be something Peter Pau and RREEF, developers behind the Sunnyvale Town Center that is headed to foreclosure want to know. Regardless, this is a huge decision by the NY court because it [...]