Housing Bailout Backfires

We’re barely two weeks away from the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit that has been propping up the market since last fall.

And already, signs point to its lugubrious affects wearing off. First, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has been a joke. Of roughly 1.4 million “trial modifications,” less than one in five has been made permanent.

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An Insider’s View of the Real Estate Train Wreck

The first time I spoke with real estate entrepreneur Andy Miller was in late 2007, when I asked him to serve on the faculty of a Casey Research Summit. And there was no one in the nation I wanted more than Andy to address the critical topic of real estate.

My interest in Andy was due to the fact that he has been singularly successful in pretty much all aspects of the real estate market, including financing and developing large projects – such as shopping centers, apartment communities, office buildings, and warehouses – from one end of the country to the other. His expertise has also allowed him to build an impressive business providing assistance to large financial institutions that need help in dealing with problem commercial real estate loans. As you might suspect, business is booming.

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Commercial Real Estate Predictions: The End of Extend and Pretend

Attention REIT investors! The commercial real estate is a disaster-in-the-making – both for property investors and for the thousands of American banks that are carrying outsized exposure to commercial borrowers.

Commercial real estate borrowers and their lenders face a mountain of debt maturities over the next few years. And re-financing this debt will be next to impossible, thanks to soaring vacancy rates and plummeting property values. “Zombie buildings” are popping up all over the place, according to Crain’s New York Business.

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