Real Insight. Real Estate.

Posts Tagged ‘bankruptcy’

The very insightful Annaly Salvos blog provide a interesting graph on the level of support the GSE’s have been providing the residential mortgage market via a all-out domination of the origination market. Just as we over-shot the natural level of home-ownership in the United States through misguided policies built up over centuries of well-intentioned programs, the GSE’s, and the Pols that back them find it hard to find a way to stop funding the market. After all, it is easy to argue they all own massive homes, and anything closely related to affordable housing is easy politics.

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The Week of December 12-18

- Is all of the loose spending by world governments creating a massive asset bubble risk?

- If Fed funds and interest rate hikes aren’t coming, then we’ve got one confused futures market.

- Dollars from Dhabi to Dubai: One Arab nation is bailing out a neighbor.

- Specialized investment banks are ramping up to prepare for CRE turmoil.

- Fairfield Residential, one of the biggest U.S. apartment landlords, is filing for Chapter 11.
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Hand over the keys?  More like hand over your chips, Mr. Trump. Andy Beal, head of Beal Bank, called the Donald’s bluff as he feigned interest last week in a joint venture with Beal to buy Trump Entertainment Resorts, the parent company of the troubled Atlantic City casinos Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina.  After filing for bankruptcy protection for the third time in his overstated real estate career in December 2007, Trump and daughter/business partner Ivanka withdrew their position. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Week of November 14-20

- The bond market has a healthy appetite for TALF-backed CMBS.

- CRE is getting blamed left and right for the slow economic recovery.

- Is the CIT Group bankruptcy a sign that government rescue plans don’t work?

- Is CRE a bigger risk to smaller banks?

- Dozens of banks are in trouble despite TARP aid.
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The Week of October 24-30

- Capmark finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but will prevail in the end.

- How many more firms could be following Capmark into bankruptcy?

- Could PPIP be the solution to more bank transparency with regard to distressed assets?

- The Great Recession may be ending, but for CRE, its more like the Great Depression beginning.

- ING will be spinning off to get ahead.
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The Hotel Industry has battered developers, and nobody worse than your favorite hospitality magnate…The Monopoly Man.

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Last week, A Warren Buffet-led group struck a deal to acquire Capmark Financial Group Inc.’s mortgage banking business . A newly formed entity owned by Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corp. was given a put option to purchase Capmark’s North American servicing and mortgage banking businesses. Capmark operates three core business lines: lending and mortgage banking, investments and funds management, and servicing. The latter of which is, and has been drastically adversely affected by the poor performance of the first two. Jeff Zaun from S & P remarked recently, “We expect Capmark either to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings or to negotiate a distressed exchange outside of bankruptcy, which most likely would affect most of its debt. We will consider either of these events to be a default.” And Buffet’s bid reflects either possibility, offering $490M, or $415M if Capmark files for bankruptcy. So why do I expect Capmark to choose bankruptcy?

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The Week of September 5-11

- And the REIT deleveraging continues…

- The toilet is starting to overflow, as five more banks got flushed.

- A huge Colorado condo development owner has filed for Chapter 11.

- A recent study by Jones Lang LaSalle shows that CRE velocity will pick up, while values will remain flat.

- Where GM might have failed, GE plans to succeed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Many times, when an individual, or a large developer/operator purchases a commercial property, they buy it through a limited partnership or limited liability company.  There are many reasons as to why they do this.  Anonymity is one.  Most wealthy people are private, and do not want to be bothered, whether it is by brokers or any other third party looking to drum up new business.  Probably the chief reason, however, has to do with tax law, as property level gains are not attributed the same way to the individuals who are members of the LP or LLC as if they owned the property outright as individuals.  Essentially it provides a corporate veil of ownership, both in terms of who actually owns the property, as well as how Uncle Sam views its capital gains/losses.  Furthermore, if there is ever an accident, or other mitigating factor whereby a lawsuit is brought upon the owner of a property, it again can help protect the personal assets of the actual owners if they are found guilty of a civil lawsuit, limiting the plaintiff solely to property level monies. But wait, there’s one other big reason single purpose entities (SPE’s) exist… and it isn’t to protect the owner. Read the rest of this entry »

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Back on November 26, 2008, LandAmerica Financial Group, the third largest 1031 exchange intermediary at the time, filed for bankruptcy protection. Its subsidiary, LandAmerica 1031 Exchange Services (LES) filed for voluntary relief under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. At the time, LES was the intermediary for over 450 incomplete transactions.

With a recent ruling by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the case of Millard Refrigerated Services vs. LandAmerica 1031 Exchange Services, any seller might now risk having some or all of their money completely out of their control if it was set aside with an intermediary for a tax-deferred exchange.  1031 intermediaries were once known as “safe harbors”, essentially as a safe place to dock one’s proceeds from a sale until they could find another property with which to use the funds to buy, thus completing their 1031 exchange, and protecting their capital gains from being taxed by the federal government. Well apparently, these safe harbors ain’t so safe anymore. Read the rest of this entry »

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