As the calendar page flipped to a new decade, Commercial Real Estate Women in Miami launched “Make it Happen,” a regional awareness campaign to encourage industry professionals to get deals done.

Suzanne Amaducci-Adams, CREW-Miami’s newly elected president and a partner at law firm Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, said much more time and effort goes into inking deals now, as opposed to a few years ago. So real estate professionals have to be innovative, she said, and “think outside of the box.”

“You’ve got to be the catalyst,” she said.

In the new year, transactions are going to be complicated and more difficult, with a host of new issues to overcome, she said. So throughout the year, CREW’s workshops and events will focus on educating its members and other professionals on how to make deals in the current market. [more]

From the New York December issue: When the economy sours, one of the few sectors to profit is usually
postgraduate education. Laid-off employees, or simply scared ones,
historically have flocked to school to beef up their résumés in the
hopes of better positioning themselves in the job market. But for some real estate professionals, this recession is different.
At New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate Continuing
Education Program, which offers over 500 classes each year, enrollment
dropped 10 to 15 percent between fall 2008 and fall 2009. The Real Estate Board of New York has also seen a 5 to 8 percent
decline in their for-credit continuing education program participants,
who typically register in order to maintain their licenses.
[more]

Commercial loans are defaulting at record-high rates, and many industry insiders believe the pace will only worsen, both in South Florida and nationwide. As revenues drop amid a severe recession, savvy commercial property owners in the region are working with banks — some more than others — to avoid default now before market conditions worsen.

According to a recent report from Real Estate Econometrics, the default rate of commercial real estate bank loans has reached its highest level in 15 years. And momentum is moving toward worsening default rates, which more than doubled nationally in the second quarter, up to 2.88 percent from 1.18 percent year-over-year, the report shows. And the company expects the default rate to rise to 4.1 percent by the end of the year, and to 5.2 percent by the end of 2010.

Rising vacancy rates, falling rents and increased operating expenses are contributing to the default surge. But the inability to refinance, sell or meet balloon payments also plays a part. Legal experts suggest commercial property owners looking to avoid default should get honest and aggressive about trying to find a middle ground.
[more]

Defaults on commercial real estate loans are at a 15-year high. Property values are declining. The commercial mortgage-backed securities market is flailing. And the worst may be yet to come. Credit remains all but frozen. Some lenders are looking to diversify away from commercial real estate while others are only lending to borrowers with whom they have existing relationships — when they lend at all. And the price of capital has soared. Meanwhile, the market is yearning for a new lending instrument to replace the bundles of loans that were securitized, divided, and ultimately proved impossible to value as the market collapsed. This time last year, commercial lending experts were predicting new instruments would emerge to fill the gap. But a year after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, memories of toxic investment vehicles remain and experts are mixed on what happens next. [more]