Commercial Real Estate Investing

  I spent several hours recently reading blogs, magazine and newsprint articles written by some of the country’s top economists.  I was trying to get a sense of where the U.S. economy is headed and gain some sort of insight as to when things might get back to “normal.”  The reality is, what we ha...

The present economic decline has been described as the greatest financial crisis to strike America since the Depression. Job losses are climbing and most predictions are alarming at best. Grace Realty Group is in the position of being part of the solution to today’s problems. Our redevelopment pr...

We think of liquid assets as something we can quickly and easily convert into cash, like stocks and bonds. With what’s been happening to investor portfolios lately, including IRA and 401k retirement funds, here’s something to think about: · If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines...

Baseball great Yogi Berra’s famous quote certainly applies to today’s real estate market. In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, the U.S. experienced a devastating downturn in the commercial real estate market. It lasted over five years and, although many investors lost huge sums of money, there wer...

I often get questions from potential investors about the basic functions of a mortgage fund (aka a mortgage pool). Therefore, I've decided to write about mortgage pools in general to clear up any misconceptions. Mortgage pools are securities that are required by state and federal agencies to pro...

  On more than one occasion I’ve mentioned Sam Zell, the real estate billionaire and organizer of the original real estate “vulture fund” (now known by the politically correct term “opportunity fund”) of the early ‘90s.  When commercial property turned sour he was ready and armed with his $409 mi...

Like any business, real estate is subject to certain market forces that affect values. The life-blood of commercial real estate is affordable financing for the acquisition, development, redevelopment and refinancing of improved properties. The availability of financing is determined by the overa...

The recent whipsaw gyrations of stock markets worldwide have kept many an investor on pins and needles lately. Since the beginning of 2008, the US stock market has shed over 40% of its value, with trillions of dollars being lost. IRA and 401k investors are especially worried that their retirement...

In times like these, when the economic future is so uncertain, let’s take a moment to revisit a lending vehicle that most people aren’t thinking about at the moment, the “wrap.” I know, I know, you’re wondering how this debt vehicle would be used in a real estate market such as this. Well, why no...

The trouble with gloom and doom is that when you’re surrounded by it, that’s all you can see. While most economists don’t predict a depression, the prevailing thought is that we’re in for a very bad recession with lots more foreclosures, job losses and many personal and business bankruptcies. I’m...