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Market Volatility Increases Across Sectors, Says Fitch
Jul 08, 2009

All commercial property sectors saw increases in volatility last year, said Fitch Ratings. According to the latest annual U.S. Property Market Metric report, average cash flow volatility rose to 3.62 last year from 2.98 in 2007; overall market volatility has reached its highest levels since Fitch began tracking the data in 2000.

The office sector was the hardest hit property type, with the average volatility score jumping to 3.68 last year from 2.62 in 2007, after four years of improvement. Multifamily properties, meanwhile, worsened for the second straight year, with average volatility scores jumping to 3.15 in 2008 from 2.50 in 2007. Retail markets also reflected more volatility with a 3.70 average score last year as opposed to 3.12 in 2007.

 
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Economic Update - Glimmers of Recovery on the Horizon
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In news that caught most everyone's attention on Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor said that the nation's unemployment rate actually went down 10 basis points in July, to 9.4 percent. It's being called a sign of stabilization because monthly changes in the unemployment rate that small tend to be revised out of existence eventually, but at this point, "stabilization" looks pretty good.
U.S. Chain Store Sales Down 5% in July
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Multi-family Mortgage Originations Down 54 Percent from Same Time Last Year
Aug 07, 2009
Commercial and multi-family mortgage originations haven’t escaped the trickle down of the recession and the credit crunch, with volumes 54 percent below last year's second quarter and 83 percent below the peak seen in the second quarter of 2007, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations.
Economic Update - Deutsche Bank Offers Grim View of U.S. Mortgages
Aug 07, 2009
Like a trailer for a monster movie, a new report by Deutsche Bank is promising scary things in the not-too-distant future. Assuming that housing prices continue a decline, the percentage of underwater mortgages might rise to 48 percent of the total, or roughly 25 million loans, by the first quarter of 2011. The bank is predicting that U.S. home prices will decline a further 14 percent from current prices by the first quarter of 2011.
BOMA Chicago Initiates Country's First Office Building Smart Grid Program
Aug 07, 2009
The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago has launched an effort to develop the country's first commercial office building smart grid program, delivering a utility-scale, clean, virtual generator through implementation of smart grid technology in more than 260 commercial buildings in downtown Chicago. With the potential to provide as much as 200 megawatts of demand response capability, the program would lower costs and avoid the need to construct expensive new generation plants. It requires upgrading the buildings' electric metering infrastructure, with significant building-level upgrades. To help address the estimated $185.4 million program cost, the city's BOMA chapter filed an application for $92.7 million in matching funds from the U.S. Department of Energy's Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which was formed under the recently passed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
 
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