48 posts tagged “real estate”

Northwest One

Globest.com reported Northwest One, a 127,000 sq ft Class B office building in Houston, has changed owners. RPD Catalyst purchased the building less than three years ago and has made some capital improvements. Transwestern's Rudy Hubbard helped broker the deal and disclosed the buyer, Fausset-Neely, paid more than $5 million in cash for the property. According to Rick Fausset, the plan is to offer aggressive rental rates in an attempt to stabilize the building, which is currently 44% occupied.

Fausset-Neely is also in negotiations for a property in Dallas that they expect to close in January 2010. "Our formula is simple," Rick Fausset told GlobeSt.com. "We buy properties substantially below replacement cost in markets that are good for job growth, then sell early. That way, we miss the next down cycle."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Blumberg Capital Partners was featured in an article today  titled "Blumberg Capital plans to invest in office space in Delhi & Mumbai" discussing the company’s investment plans for India in an exclusive interview with Moneylife. An excerpt:

We are looking at opportunities in developed commercial office space in Tier I cities, but at present we are more concerned about the regulations. Once the new real-estate regulations are implemented, then we will surely invest in India. If laws are changed, we will create more India-focused funds.

There are many investors like large pension funds in the Netherlands, insurance companies and banks in Germany, public funds in the United States and innumerable foreign and high net-worth individuals (HNIs) in the US, who want to invest about $500 million, but they are waiting for stricter regulation to be implemented in the real-estate market.

Click here to read the full article, and for more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Investing in India's Real Estate Sector

Airtime: Wed. Dec. 9 2009 | 0:00 ST ET

Philip Blumberg, founding chairman & CEO of Blumberg Capital Partners, sees signs of a turnaround in India's real estate sector. He sheds more light on investing in this sector, with CNBC's Oriel Morrison.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

As local economies continue to shake out from the financial crisis, Portland is showing signs the worst isn't over yet. Marcus & Millichap has announced their forecasts for major real estate markets around the country and Portland could be facing a 15% vacancy rate at the end of 2010, due to continuing job cuts and consolidations. According to the Business Journal, the current vacancy rate, about 11%, is the highest the area has seen in 5 years, and an increase of 3% from just the beginning of this year, can be attributed to major layoffs and cutbacks by Daimler Trucks North America (also known as Freightliner) and Laika, a Portland-based animation studio that created the movie Coraline.

Portland has been largely insulated from large tenant vacancies, thanks to a concentration of smaller tenants. Jeff Borlaug, vice president and director of brokerage for NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson, a commercial real estate firm, told the Business Journal: “Our sweet spot for office space is in that 3,500- to 5,000-square foot range.” In 2009, 14% of the space leased and only 5% of all transactions were attributed to large tenants.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

RTC Industries Inc. has signed a 12 year lease for the 503,200 square foot Crossroads 5 building in Romeoville according to a CoStar report. RTC, a company providing store-ready solutions to the retail industry including planning and design, manufacturing, program management, global logistics, and retail technology, will relocated to 3101 Kedzie Avenue next spring. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"When we started this building in early 2008, it wasn't clear how drastically the market was going to change," said Steve Schnur, senior vice president of Duke Realty's Chicago operations. "We certainly feel fortunate to attract such a strong company as RTC to this building. The location works well for them, and we were able to structure an attractive long-term deal. I applaud them for their foresight to capitalize on today's marketplace and make a move that will improve their efficiencies and work to their advantage." RTC was represented by Bill Frain, Todd Lippman and Jim Whalen with CB Richard Ellis, while Larry Johnson and Mike Mangan of CB Richard Ellis represented Duke Realty in the transaction.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Barclays Capital has formed Crescent Real Estate Holdings LLC, a joint venture with Goff Capital, Inc., to acquire Crescent Real Estate Equities Limited Partnership from Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funding II. Crescent, a real estate investment company, owns more than 17 million square feet of office towers as well as investments in resorts and hotels according to a Wall Street Journal article. Barclay's also announced the appointment of John C. Goff as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Crescent. The appointment marks Mr. Goff’s return to Crescent, a firm he formerly led as Vice Chairman & CEO until its sale to Morgan Stanley in 2007 for $6.5 billion.

"Our first order of business right now is focusing on improving existing properties," said Mr. Goff. "We have plenty of capital to deploy towards that. I have been buying a substantial amount of real-estate debt. This is the first big asset acquisition that I have found compelling." Other properties in Crescent’s portfolio include Houston Center, Fulbright Tower and Post Oak Central, all of which are owned through various joint ventures according to the Houston Business Journal. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

The Defense Department's Base Realignment and Closure program has created a flurry of development around the Aberdeen Proving Ground in North-Eastern Maryland. The Department of Defense C4ISR Mission (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) is relocating from Fort Monmouth, bringing approximately 8,200 jobs. St. John Properties recently broke ground for a 75,000 sq ft office building for defense contractor Raytheon. According to The Gazette, St. John Properties expects to develop 380,000 sq ft inside the base for the Government and Technology Enterprise, a research and development and technology business park for the government sector and private contractors.

Seeking to meet the increased need for contractor space around the Army base, Corporate Office Properties Trust broke ground in November for a second Class A office building at its North Gate Business Park, near Interstate 95. The first building under development totals 80,000 square feet with an anticipated completion date of fourth quarter 2009. The newest project will reach 85,000 square feet with an anticipated completion date of second quarter 2010. Construction is expected to cost more than $64.8 million and will include about 290,000 square feet of office space.  The complex is designed to meet expectations of 3 million square feet of new office space that will be needed for military and private contractors under BRAC.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

As many experts start to see a diminishing threat to our economy due to a large-scale recession or depression, the commercial real estate sector is sorting through the ashes and starting to look down the road for signs of life. According to the National Real Estate Investor Online, one indicator that should give us a sense of optimism is a recent slowing trend in the growth available office sublease space, which now sits at 113.1 million square feet nationally.  However, if recovery follows the pattern of the last two economic cycles, employment might lag behind. "It's easily a nine- to 12-month gap between the economy turning, jobs being created and space being [in demand]," stated Hessam Nadji, managing director of research services for Marcus & Millichap. He estimates for the sector to achieve net absorption of space, it will require two quarters of job growth.

A telling indicator in the commercial real estate finance sector will be the successful ventures of Developers Diversified Realty and Vornado Realty Trust which have ambitions to raise CMBS funds through the Term Asset-Backed Security Loan Facility program. "Those deals, once they go through in the fall, will signal the return of the securitization market to the best-quality assets and best-quality net operating incomes," says Nadji. "It's a very limited signal. It's not going to affect the broad commercial real estate market, especially assets averaging $10 million to $20 million in value, which make up most of the market. But it's a start."

For more news and information, visit Blumerg Capital Partners.

California's Silicon Valley took its lumps after the tech bubble burst. Now, according to the Mercury News, the high-tech hub is feeling the force of the nation's recession and, like in most areas, its sagging commercial real estate market is proof recovery is not yet in hand. CB Richard Ellis recently issued a report stating there are 12.6 million square feet of empty office space in the valley and 39 completely vacant office buildings. That includes four six-story office buildings with 427,000 square feet of space in San Jose developed by Legacy Partners and the still-empty Moffett Towers in Sunnyvale.

Local real estate agents still have reason to be optimistic after surviving similarly lean times less than a decade ago. "We were the epicenter in 2003, but this was much more of a global recession which hit us on so many fronts," Phil Mahoney of Cornish and Carey said. As the economy rebounds, agents expect businesses will initiate expansions that have been put on hold. "We're not really oversupplied if we have any normal kind of recovery." During the tech bust, "companies just evaporated," said Mike Field of the Sobrato Organization. "This time, companies have contracted but they haven't evaporated."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.