Virtual Open Houses

Ian Brown has rejoined Grubb & Ellis Co.'s Newport Beach office as a senior vice president with the retail group.

Despite the economic downturn, Manhattan’s retail market is showing surprising strength, as least as evidenced by current asking rents, according to a survey released by the Real Estate Board of New York.

ZipRealty, the national real estate brokerage that gives rebates to buyers and commission discounts to sellers, will begin posting customer satisfaction ratings for its agents on its Web site starting Sunday.

The company has been surveying customers since it launched nine years ago and it will add all of those ratings to the Web site, ZipRealty Vice President Leslie Tyler told me today. But it will only post customer-satisfaction scores for agents who have been rated by at least three customers. It’s important to note that none of these surveys are anonymous. The agent gets the results and knows precisely what the buyer thought (This might dissuade some folks from being truly honest).

Juster Development has acquired 100 and 120 White Plains Road in Tarrytown, N.Y., from SL Green in a $48 million deal.

A joint venture between URDANG and Onyx Equities L.L.C. has sold the 320,000-square-foot Parker Corporate Center in White Plains, N.Y., for $81.8 million, a gain of nearly 20 percent over the November 2006 purchase price of $68.5 million.

Is the grand plan by FDIC Chairman Shelia Barr in trouble? Bair has been promoting a plan to use $50 billion of the Treasury’s $700 billion bailout funds to guarantee that home loans renegotiated by banks get repaid. Her proposal is modeled after FDIC efforts to quickly restructure troubled loans at Wall Street Journal today suggests the plan has run into opposition in the White House.

It’s hard to tell if that’s the case. White House spokesperson Tony Fratto will only say that the Bush Administration is reviewing a number of proposals for restructuring loans, and that the Journal story “is inaccurate.” Clearly, though, once a new president is elected the pressure will build for some sort of help for homeowners.

Other federal efforts to right the housing collapse seem to be getting off to a slow start. The Federal Housing Administration’s 'Hope for Homeowners' program, launched Oct. 1., was designed to keep 400,000 troubled homeowners in their homes by swapping risky loans for conventional 30-year fixed rate ones with lower rates. But the government received only 42 applications from homeowner in the program's first two weeks and all have been rejected, according to the Housing Wire blog.

Even Spain seems to be showing the U.S. up, declaring a moratorium on mortgage payments for homeowners who have lost their jobs.

Either under pressure from state regulators, as in the case of Bank of America, or under the their own initiative, as JP Morgan Chase recently announced, big banks are taking steps to stop foreclosures and renegotiate loans. Housing advocates say the Bush Administration should be doing so as well. “If we could get (Treasury Secretary) Paulson to do for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac what Shelia Barr has done for IndyMac, that would overnight be a huge benefit for homeowners,” says Bruce Marks, founder of the non-profit National Assistance Corp. of America.

Crafting an effective mortgage bailout won’t be easy. It has to be done in a way that helps those who are in danger of foreclosure, but without providing an incentive for otherwise healthy homeowners to default. Moreover, there is still some debate as to whether keeping trouble borrowers in their homes ultimately helps the general population. A recent study by the St Louis Federal Reserve of foreclosure moratoriums put in place by 27 states during the Great Depression found that banks cut back on lending and borrowing rates for home buyers were higher because lenders couldn’t take property in default back and resell it.

Raphael Bostic, a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve who now teaches at the University of Southern California, says that if the federal government renegotiated trouble homeowner loans, either by providing assistance to private banks or through buying the loans themselves, it would help put a floor under housing prices. “Everyone is trying to figure out where the bottom is,” Bostic says. “People are not going think there’s a bottom if they know there’s a flood of distressed assets still coming up for sale.”

Both presidential candidates were in favor of renegotiating homeowner loans. Those in the real estate industry are hoping the next president will bring some calm to an uncertain market. Lorna Borenstein, president of Move.com, a real estate information company that includes Realtor.com, says she was at conference for women executives in early October when the news of the big bank-bailout bill passing was announced. “There was a huge round of applause,” she says. Now she hopes a new president will be a catalyst to brighten a gloomy picture. “We have an oversupply of houses on the market,’ she says. “Until that gets cleared out you won’t see any stabilization in prices.”

It's Election Day. For those still undecided, haven't voted, or otherwise concerened here's where the two presidential candidates stand on housing issues.

Barack Obama wants the Federal Reserve to have more authority over regulating financial insitutions, reducing what he calls the patchwork of regulatory authorities that contributed to this crisis. He wants banks to renegotiate loans with troubled borrowers. He wants judges in bankruptcy court to have the ability to restructure home loans. Better loan term disclosures. He also wants a 10% mortgage interest deduction for borrowers who don't itemize their return.

McCain proposed a new "HOME Plan" allowing homeonwers to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home's market value. Those eligible would be holders of a sub-prime mortgage taken after 2005 who live in their home (primary residence only); can prove creditworthiness at the time of the original loan; are either delinquent, in arrears on payments, facing a reset or otherwise demonstrate that they will be unable to continue to meet their mortgage obligations; and can meet the terms of a new 30 year fixed-rate mortgage on the existing home. McCain says no taxpayer money should bail out real estate speculators or financial market participants who failed to perform due diligence in assessing credit risks.

ProLogis has signed seven new lease agreements in New Jersey representing a total of approximately 490,600 square feet during the third quarter of 2008.

Cabot Properties Inc., the Boston-based private equity real estate firm, has managed to get its hands on $65 million in financing for a group of 14 newly acquired industrial properties.

The Northern/Central New Jersey office market experienced strong lease renewal activity during this year’s third quarter as tenants opt to stay in place in the midst of turbulent economic times, according to a report by CB Richard Ellis Inc.