Commercial Real Estate Finance

Posts Tagged ‘car dealerships’

A Riddle: What do buying a DVD  and buying a foreign car have in common?
The Answer: They both make for a potentially crushing blow to retail real estate.

First it was car dealerships. When the big three automakers were rumored to be going bankrupt (and then GM and Chrysler took federal bailout money) many car dealerships were given the ol’ heave ho. This caused a huge drain on retail real estate. After all, what would replace these massive parcels? Lucky for property owners, the vast majority of car dealerships are very well located on highly traveled thoroughfares, which is an attractive feature for any retailer. While there is still a glut of defunct and unoccupied former car dealerships, the guess here is that as the economy rebounds, those sites will be replaced by growing retailers looking for great signage and visibility, or even by more car dealerships. But what about movie theaters?

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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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The Week of May 30-June 5

-  A new report emerged showing banks’ troubled CRE assets have doubled.

- Word from the NAREIT conference this week is that REIT’s are better positioned for the recovery.

- Countrywide’s ex-Chairman was charged by the SEC with fraud.

- What will be the nationwide commercial real estate impact for car dealership sites affected by GM filing for bankruptcy?

- Real Estate Lender Capmark successfully reorganized its financing to stay afloat.
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