CRE Finance Council June Convention, New York City

By Kerrie Addante-Jacobs, Distressed Commercial Sales for FNT

The announcement that we have already experienced, on a national level, the worst in the commercial real estate market created a positive energy surrounding the convention. Commercial real estate values appear to be stabilizing, and the debt capital markets have become far more accommodative over the past several months.

The uncertainty that surrounds the ability of maturing loans to be refinanced is still a major concern to many legacy CMBS (Commercial Mortgage-Backed Security) investors. The “maturity wave” has already begun to ramp up.

-Nearly $60 billion of fixed–rate CMBS loans have matured since 2009, including $6.4 billion in 2011.

-An additional $26.8 billion is scheduled to mature before year end, with another $47.2 billion slated to mature in 2012.

-Whether these maturing loans perform, default or are modified, they will most certainly impact a large amount of CMBS investments over the coming years.

-Although lenders will likely continue to focus on debt yield when resizing loans, they may place more emphasis on DSCR (Debt–Service Coverage Ratio) if commercial mortgage rates begin to rise.

Different property types are recovering at varying rates, but the path is decidedly positive for net operating income.

-Office vacancies have fallen from 17.6% to 17.5% in the first quarter of 2011. This is the first time in three years this sector recorded a dip nationally.

-Retail properties continue to remain slightly distressed with shopping center vacancies at 10.9% nationally, a 19-year high. However, with retail sales picking up due to increased consumer spending, this should be beneficial to retail tenants. Retail properties may need another quarter or two before occupancy rates stabilize, but are still considered a great investment with tenants locked into long term leases.

-Multi-family properties vacancies declined sharply in 2010 to 6.6% from a 30 year high of 8.0%. Vacancies are expected to dip again to 5.5% by the end of the year.

-Rent growth for some supply-constrained submarkets may exceed 10%. There is a concern due to the positive press for multi-family assets that bidding wars may be more common and lead to the temptation to overpay.

Overall, commercial real estate properties are expected to generate total returns of about 9.3% per year from 2011 to 2015. Being cognizant of market trends and property types and focusing on assets that provide the optimal blend of returns from income gains and value appreciation are the basic rules of good real estate investing.


*Figures provided by Trepp and Citi Investment Research and Analysis

Active Rain Best Practices - Part 1

For you active rain users, in terms of your profile page, did you know:

… that your profile gets indexed and ranked by the search engines?

… that links most often go to your profile page?

… that Google sends traffic to your profile page?

… that prospects read EVERY word of your profile to determine if you are someone they want to consider working with?

… that agents who don’t already know you will read your profile to help determine if they want to refer business to you?

So if you hastily dashed off a profile page when first setting up your active rain account, it’s pretty important, based upon the above points, that you give thought to developing a more robust profile page; one that truly speaks to who you are as both an Agent and a person. Beef that profile page up!

To help with indexing, consider using the first and last name fields in a slightly different manner, by incorporating keywords relevant to you and your business. Put both your first and last name into the first name field. Use the last name field for a very short tagline using those keywords relevant to you; i.e. Phoenix foreclosure specialist... or Scottsdale retirement community expert.

The opening of the description field should compel readers to WANT to know more about you, and the remainder of it should indeed give a great picture of who you are, both professionally and personally. Be professional, but be YOURSELF, let it show through your writing.

Your contact information should include ALL means they can contact you: office and mobile phones, email address, and links to all your social network pages, including active rain, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Use video if possible – and as much as possible. People LOVE video, and will view it before reading text. When placing video, be sure to place it so it falls ½ above the page fold, and ½ below. That helps to ensure the reader scrolls and sees everything on the page.

We can all tell the world all about our expertise, ethics, etc. all day long, and the reality is, it won’t hold a candle to the impact that third-party testimonials provide. Use as many as possible. Make sure they are as detailed as possible, not the generic, “Joe Agent did a fabulous job selling our home!” If they are detailed about how you truly helped in a sticky or difficult situation, they are far more impactful to readers.

Next week, we’ll discuss how engaging with your peers on active rain can help build YOUR business!

Common Mistakes on Twitter

When it comes to Twitter, mistakes lie in the eye of the beholder, or the tweeter. But if you’re serious about blogging, you need to understand the role Twitter plays in your online presence.

First of all, it’s a communication tool. We make friends, we follow celebrities, we network. We have fun on Twitter, offer support, provide a laugh. We help spread news, both good and bad. And we come together in a crisis.

To make Twitter valuable build your following the old-fashioned way. Follow people you like and then follow the people they follow. Engage in conversation. Start it or jump right into it.

Common communication mistakes on Twitter
1. Begging or bragging about followers

“I’ll follow you if you follow me.”

“Wow, I just hit the 8000 follower mark!”

Exceptions:

If you have a new friend who has just joined Twitter, invite your followers to welcome them.
“My friend @John finally joined Twitter. Follow him so he can finally see what the fuss is all about.”

Also, if you are approaching a significant number and want to round up, it’s okay to ask for followers.
“I’m at 798 followers. I only need 2 more followers to achieve my lifetime goal.”

2. Never answering back

My mother is on Twitter. She’s actually starting to get the hang of it. Since she is following so few people, she sees it more like a direct line to me and my tweets (Note to self: be careful of what I say online).

When I recently asked for a shout out for my mom’s birthday, I wonder why she never responded to any of her tweets. She never knew about checking her “Mentions.” I know she’ll kill me for admitting this to you but she had an excuse. Most of you don’t.

If you’re using Twitter for your own little circle of chit-chat and never respond to anyone except those that you already know well, don’t expect your followers to follow you to your blog. Your blog should be a community and Twitter is a great place to welcome people into it.

Twitter can be a lot of fun. But make no mistake, it’s also a powerful marketing tool. If you haven’t figured that out, let me know and I’ll fill you on the basics. In the meantime, there are lots of mistakes being made in this arena too.

Common marketing mistakes on Twitter
1. Tweeting only links.

A good rule of thumb, if you really get down to the business of it, is nine non-business tweets for every one business tweet. For a blogger, your blog post links are your business tweets. Don’t overload people with them. Typically, tweeting them three times per day is effective. Otherwise, they’re just annoying.

2. Setting up an automated Facebook feed

Don’t worry. I’m not entirely against this practice. I use it on several of my Facebook pages. It ensures at the very least that my page updates are tweeted. It updates my followers and also can help drive my followers to my Facebook page.

However, I have seen many Twitter accounts set up simply as a feed. And that’s it! It doesn’t make much sense to push content onto Twitter which encourages engagement if you are only on Facebook and never on Twitter. I know that sounds overly logical but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. And yet these people follow me!

3. Not monitoring your content

When I say monitoring your content, I mean monitoring YOUR content. What are you saying on Twitter? What kind of language do you use? How much are you sharing (or oversharing)? Are you drinking and tweeting (a sometimes deadly combination)?

I’m not suggesting you should become someone you’re not. Be your silly, goofy, sexy, funny, passionate, raunchy self. Just understand that your Twitter stream is a big part of your online presence. Don’t say something you don’t want a brand, business, boss, or even your mother to read. Sometimes too much is too much.
Did you catch all that? Are you doing it all correctly? There’s a lot more to learn even if you’ve been on for years. For those of your just getting started, I recommend you read one of my all-time favorite posts at the new Momcomm.com blog, Making Sense of Twitter – It’s the Never-ending Cocktail Party.

Now go tweet your heart out!

Adapted from an article by Fadra Nally on May 3, 2011 on socialdialect.com

Fidelity Phoenix Celebrates 3 Year Anniversary in The Hayden Ferry Building

Yesterday Fidelity Phoenix celebrated 3 years in one of the most recognizable buildings in Tempe on the shore of Tempe Town Lake, The Hayden Ferry building. In honor of our anniversary the Administration team hosted an employee recognition luncheon to celebrate and say "thanks" for a job well done.

The corporate offices for Fidelity Phoenix reside on the 11ths floor of The Hayden Ferry Building. Over the course of a month, the average traffic including staff and visitors is in the thousands.

REO Expo Recap

By Melisssa Shapiro, AVP Director of Sales Fidelity Phoenix

The mood was optimistic last week at the big REO conference in Dallas, REO EXPO. Experts believed that we are nearing the bottom of the housing crisis, with a long way to recover, but starting to move the needle north.

Banks and outsourcers alike believed inventory was going to increase by end of third quarter and into the fourth quarter, steadily all the way up to the holidays. Releasing toxic assets, getting them on the market and liquidating them is the only way to begin our recovery. There has been such a stop and go across the nation with releasing assets and then pulling back. Much of this has been due to the moratoriums put into place caused by the national loan modification push, the robo signings and the MERS issues. Banks want to be sure that they are crossing all t’s and dotting all i’s. The banks that are consumer backed with banking and depository relationships are especially sensitive to their image and “doing the right thing”. What everybody does realize is that our problem is not getting any better. The message between the banks is that they are committed to moving these assets any way they can, either with short sale, deed in lieu or foreclosure. There were more panelist at the REO EXPO speaking of an aggressive push toward short sale than ever before. Each of the big banks, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Chase have all placed time and resources into call centers and education on how to successfully close short sales. In many cases, a home sold as a short sale is a better price than a foreclosure and the realtor is paid higher commissions.

The problem still remains that homeowners are still not paying their mortgages and housing prices are still upside down. In Arizona 1 out of every 4 loans is seriously in default (more than 60 days late). There are still over 40 thousand properties with no running water, no electricity and not claimed by the bank. Inventory on MLS in Maricopa county is just under 22 thousand, an all time low. The positive side to this is that due to the elementary theory of supply and demand, prices are going up with multiple offers on most listings.

With the big push of releasing inventory, aggressive stands on closing short sales and home prices at an all time low, a push toward recovery is sure to be near in our future.

Jay Butler Discusses Economic and Real Estate Activity

ASU Professor of Real Estate, Jay Butler discusses economic and real estate activity.



To view the entire power point presentation visit our Facebook page

Vote Fidelity Phoenix The #1 Title Company in Arizona!

It's that time of year again, time to vote for your favorite Arizona companies for the 2012 publication of Ranking Arizona.

Ranking Arizona is the outcome of the largest business opinion poll in Arizona. Each category is selected by the staff of AZ Big Media for the general public to vote on and are based upon business and leisure activities of Arizona's business professionals.

Please support Fidelity Phoenix by casting your vote, it's simple:

Go to ranking.aznow.biz
-Choose the 'To Vote Search by name' button
- Type in Fidelity National Title
- Enter your email address

Only 40 more days to vote for the 2012 publication! Thanks for your support!