House As Shelter, Or Burden? (economist.com)
US Foreclosure Filings Jump as Moratoriums End (cnbc.com)
Hawaii foreclosures soar 503% in March (honoluluadvertiser.com)
Biggest Real Estate Bankruptcy In History (bloomberg.com)
Deflation Has Gone Global (Mish)
The Real Fiscal Crisis Is Yet to Come (knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)
Looting Social Security (thenation.com)
Wells Fargo Appraisers Lawsuit (hbsslaw.com)
Is fear the cause of the business feeze? I think not (examiner.com)
Unsafe Money Market Guarantees Expire in April (geldpress.com)
Goldman Sachs Tries to Shut Down Financial Blogger (marketoracle.co.uk)
No End Yet for Downturn in Housing, New Data Sugges (nytimes.com)
Why a 50% Drop in Housing Is Not the Bottom (Charles Hugh Smith)
T2 Partners Presentation (scribd.com)
Yahoo plans to eliminate up to 600 jobs (sfgate.com)
Unemployment Impacting S. California's Rental Markets (nuwireinvestor.com)
Commercial real estate market softens (sfgate.com)
On the front lines of the US meltdown (macleans.ca)
Empty Florida houses may return to nature (latimes.com)
Economist Predicts Future (dilbert.com)

Fast forward to 2009 and apparently, we're not in Kansas anymore. In fact, the real estate foreclosure tornado is about to hit the commercial arena and with a full force.

In fact, much larger than expected. I hate to say this to those "investors" who paid for 5 cap properties in, well, crap neighborhoods, thinking that they're going to flip to another idiot. You know what they say: everyone has a dumb friend. If you need to look around to see who the dumb friend is, guess what. (I'll leave the punchline to your imagination)

Commercial real estate is safe in a sense that it is bought for business reasons (i.e. rent it out for cashflow). But it's riskier in a sense that there aren't (that I know of) fully-amortized loans. The loans are due anywhere between 1 to 10 years, depending on size, type, and terms of the loan. In another words, if you as an investor plan on amortizing the loan to $0 in time span of 30 years, you'll need at minimum 3 loans - 1 acquisition at time of purchase and 2 refinance (10 yr term loans) every 10 years.

What happens if you're positive cashflow but yet cannot refinance at your 10th or 20th year? If you refinance to an amount lower than what you owe and do not have the cash to make up for the difference, you're going to sell at a loss. Pretty simple concept. No rocket science here.

But what is happening in the market? First of all, there is the credit liquidity crisis, i.e. there are no loans. Second, even if there are loans, the maximum LTV on the loan has significantly decreased since the residential real estate foreclosures has begun:

With credit markets still shaky, about $171 billion in loans backed by offices, shopping centers, hotels and other commercial buildings are coming due this year.

....

But they've tightened their standards significantly from the easy-credit days. Lenders are requiring more equity – essentially a larger down payment – and charging higher interest rates on loans.

Where landlords may have been able to get a loan for 80 percent of a building's value during the boom, lenders now are limiting loan amounts to as little as 50 percent of value.

In another words, commercial real estate is going to see its ugly wave of foreclosures. In fact, the deflationary pressure on the commercial real estate market has started to take its toll:

Meanwhile, the value of commercial property has fallen in many cases as the economy has deteriorated. Across all types of property, values dropped 17 percent in 2008, said Rebekah Brown, a vice president in asset management for JPMorgan in New York. Forecasts call for values to fall 15 percent further before stabilizing.

When the economy tanks, businesses go, well, out of business. Less businesses there are, less tenants there are. Less tenants equals vacancy, which equals lower income and lower property value:

The demand for office space was negative in 2008, according to data from commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis. Although 7.3 million square feet of new office space became available last year, there was a negative absorption of 603,000 square feet.

In 2007, roughly 1.5 million of the 4.9 million of office space constructed that year was absorbed.

On top of that, construction continues on projects that will add another 3.1 million square feet of office space in the Valley.

In the industrial market, only about 630,000 square feet were absorbed of the more than 12.3 million square feet of space that was built in 2008 were absorbed. And 3.8 million square feet are still under construction.

And the industry "specialists" and "insiders" who have told us investors that commercial real estate market is a recession/trouble proof investment is now telling us otherwise:

“I expect it to get much worse in the next two years,” said Jim Rounds, an economist at Scottsdale-based Elliot D. Pollack Co.

With all this negative news, what's a small investor to do? Very simple. What naturally follows a problem? Of course, the opportunists:

Sales generated through auctions — including residential, commercial and agricultural properties — totaled $58.6 billion in 2008, up 38 percent from $42.3 billion in 2003, according to a recently released tally by the National Auctioneers Association, a trade group based in Overland Park, Kan.

In fact, wise real estate investors/developers are actually buying right now because the pain is so great. Donald Trump is no exception:

Donald Trump has sealed a deal to buy Lowes Island Club, a country club with two championship golf courses in Loudoun County.

The Washington Business Journal reported in January that Trump was in negotiations to acquire the club, and his organization has now confirmed that it bought the 800-acre site.

If I had a time machine, I would go back to 3-4 years ago when I was having a coffee with a broker named Milton who told me and my partner of an "amazing" 5 cap deal in Stockton, CA (highly agricultural, low-end market in central California). Instead of wasting an hour of my life listening to him pitch to me about these wonderful investment opportunities, I should have acted out lines from Wizard of Oz with my business partner:

Don't be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don't talk

I would categorize this presentation by the Carlyle Group (a very large private equity group) as "factual information" as much as it is "chicken little"/"sky is falling" sensational media.

However, there's a widespread adoption of the bad news by the news folks, such as this The Economist post:

This crisis, like most others in rich countries, emerged from a property bubble and a credit boom. The scale of the bubble—a doubling of house prices in five years—was about as big in America’s ten largest cities as it was in Japan’s metropolises. But nationwide, house prices rose further in America and Britain than they did in Japan (see first chart). So did commercial-property prices. In absolute terms, the credit boom on top of the housing bubble was unparalleled. In America private-sector debt soared from $22 trillion in 2000 (or the equivalent of 222% of GDP) to $41 trillion (294% of GDP) in 2007 (see second chart).

Judged by standard measures of banking distress, such as the amount of non-performing loans, America’s troubles are probably worse than those in any developed-country crash bar Japan’s. According to the IMF, non-performing loans in Sweden reached 13% of GDP at the peak of the crisis. In Japan they hit 35% of GDP. A recent estimate by Goldman Sachs suggests that American banks held some $5.7 trillion-worth of loans in “troubled” categories, such as subprime mortgages and commercial property. That is equivalent to almost 40% of GDP.

But everyday bloggers that have a huge following by individual web surfers like you and me. For example, though this blogger doesn't command a huge traffic, he/she presents a perfect example of gloom and doom:

The pundits in the mainstream press did not even have the intelligence to call our current situation a “recession” until a full year had elapsed. I have little doubt that they will also not see what appears obvious to me, and increasingly many others as well that, while we are not there yet in terms of certain key benchmarks, we are well on our way to a full blow “depression.” Some have played the game right down the middle, calling our present situation a “Great Recession.” The truth of the matter remains—it’s the 11th hour now, and a make or break effort is being mounted by the new administration to try to stop the economy from sliding further.

Financial Blog “Whisky & Gunpowder” comments: “It will be called a “depression” if today’s economic tempest slips out of the government’s control. From a financial point of view, a depression is a period when the distortions of an inflationary boom are liquidated — a mass die-off of the economically misbegotten. From an economic point of view, it’s a period when the general standard of living decreases significantly.” And that’s an understatement.

I'm a big fan of Tony Robbins / Joel Osteen type of thinking: that yesterday is past and that the future is bright. Yet at the same time, I was very wary of getting into 5-6 cap investments that all these idiot brokers were trying to pitch to me.

So where do we draw the line?

Of course, no one can answer that for you, especially these financial "gurus" or god forbid, these bloggers.

What I know is that, after the rain, the sun will come. After the night, the day comes. After the storm, peace ensues.

Fannie Mae is updating the policy that pertains to multiple mortgages to the same borrower.Fannie Mae’s current policy limits the number of one- to four-unit financed properties in which the

borrower may have an individual or joint ownership interest to four financed properties when the mortgage being delivered to Fannie Mae is secured by an investment property or second home. The limitation on the number of mortgages currently being financed applies to the total number of properties financed, not just the number of mortgages sold to Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae is modifying this policy to allow investor and second home borrowers to own five to ten financed properties if they meet certain eligibility and underwriting and delivery requirements as outlined in this Announcement. Unless otherwise stated, these requirements apply to all mortgage loans whether underwritten manually or through Desktop Underwriter® (DU®).

This is HOT! BUY BUY BUY!

According to Bloomberg, the former investment banker John Talbot prints a realistic yet grim picture:

Talbott is an oracle with a track record: His previous books predicted the collapse of both the housing bubble and the tech-stock binge before it. A friend who runs a New York steak house introduces him as Johnny Nostradamus, he says.

What sets him apart from other doomsayers is his relentless emphasis on simple arithmetic. He walks you through the numbers to show how U.S. house prices got so out of kilter with wages, rental prices and replacement values -- the cost of buying a property and building a home. (“Homes in California by 2006 were selling at three to five times what it would cost to build a similar home from scratch,” he writes.)

Five More Years

Talbott’s latest predictions are sobering. The U.S. is only halfway through the total potential decline in housing prices, he says. Home values will continue to deteriorate for four to five years, he forecasts. Adjustable-rate mortgages issued in 2004 and 2005, for example, are only now resetting for the first time, he notes.

Is he a doom-gloom nay-sayer who's more interested in getting attention than a fact reporter? Perhaps. But what's more interesting is that he's not alone.

The Intuitive Blogger reports that with the next wave of sales from baby boomers who want to cash in on their homes and investments,  the deflationary pressure on real estate prices will increase:

And who will still feel the pain? Of course, California:

California’s prices will have to fall much further, particularly along the coast. Due largely to restrictive land use policies, California house prices had risen to well above the national Median Multiple by the early 1990s, an association identified by Dartmouth’s William Fischel. During the last trough, after the early 1990s bubble and before the 2000s bubble, the Median Multiple in the four coastal California markets fell to between 4.0 and 4.5. It would not be surprising for those levels to be seen again before there is price stability.

Using this standard, I expect median house prices could fall another $150,000 to $200,000 in the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas. The Los Angeles area could see another $100,000 to $125,000 drop, while the San Diego area could be in store for a further decline of $50,000 to $75,000.

Ouch. What's even more fascinating is that, even in a upscale locale like Orange County where the median income is TWICE that of the national average, one million-dollar O.C. home faced foreclosure for every two sold.

Well, i guess the blood hasn't completely spilled over. Investors, keep your eyes open and your wallets ready.

Some media companies that cover real estate like Inman and Internal Herald Tribune (among a plethora of others) are championing the renewed surge of buyer enthusiasm in the market.

Huffington Post, on the other hand,  are saying that the bottom is yet to be seen and that we should prepare for the worst. In fact, the real blood is yet to be spilled, according to this blog post:

Existing Home Sales rose month-over-month in Dec. Everyone is giddy over the possible implications –signs of a robust reversal in the housing market leading the consumer and banks out of the devastating asset valuation nose dive. Of course, this will lead to asset price mark-ups and a ‘v’-shaped, full-blown economic recovery. That would be nice.

But it can’t happen this way and accepting the existing home sales data without looking inside the numbers will lead to incorrect assumptions about the housing market and subsequent losses if you make bets according to the faulty data.

Yes, on a national basis existing home sales were up 6.5 over November but also down 3.5% from Dec of last year. This is just one blip up like four or five others we have seen in the past year - they are always greeted the same way. A large percentage of this came from CA so let’s focus there because other bubble states are very similar. The overall month-over-month rise was a function of crashing prices, lower rates and the CA law SB1137 keeping a flood of REO inventory off of the market. This is all good stuff…or is it.

It’s All About Organic Sales

Organic sales - me selling a home to you - gauges to true health of the housing and mortgage markets and are at record lows. Two years ago organic sales were 95% of all sales and in Dec they made up 42.5% of all sales in CA. Foreclosure-related sales make up the rest. Nationally in December, only 55% of all sales were organic. The foreclosure market is now the housing market crowding out Ma and Pa Homeowner who can’t compete against banks and servicers ‘dumping’ properties.

Organic sales plummeting means that home owners are not freely able to transact. This tells me a few things a) that home owners are stuck upside down in their home and can’t sell b) the all-important move up buyer is non-existent and can’t even afford to buy the home they presently live in given present-day sensible lending guidelines c) home owners with equity can’t sell their home in order to get the down payment for the new home. Organic sales plummeting is a leading indicator to foreclosures that most have not put together yet.

Are Falling Values Good for Housing?

The pundits preach that falling values are great for housing because more people can buy. That is not the whole story. In this market after such a devastating past year and a half for home prices, lower prices are a leading indicator of two things – more loan defaults and more zombie home owners ‘stuck’ in their home unable to sell or refi.

Both of these are a leading indicator of future home price depreciation. Thus, the negative feedback loop in housing that has devastated the sector.

Show me a month where a) organic sales rise b) values stay flat or rise and c) new loan defaults and foreclosures stay flat or drop d) foreclosure related sales rise - that would be a positive. At present, ‘d)’ is the only factor in place.

Those citing a drop in inventories as the ‘mustard seed of hope’ forget that from Dec through Feb many that had no luck selling the prior year keep their homes from the MLS awaiting the Spring selling season. Inventory always surged from Mar to May.  Additionally, they also forget about ’shadow inventory’ in the form of REO that is not listed.  Realty Trac said in a recent story that they show that only about a third of all REO is listed and trackable as inventory. The rest is sitting rotting at the banks/servicers. These numbers are very close to numbers I have quoted in the past through independent research.

A Flood of REO Properties About to Hit

Looking forward a few months, the REO inventory ‘wave’ that has built up in the past 12-months is about to hit hard. In CA, the SB1137 law exacted on Sept 5^th forced a 60-day moratorium on Notice-of-Defaults and Notice-of-Trustee Sales. A Notice-of-Trustee Sale is needed before an insti can take a home to foreclosure. The law essentially kicked the can down the road where all of the inventory will hit as the Spring/Summer selling season kick off. In this respect, the plan worked.

Where do we stand on sales?

So who do we believe? There's so much jitter and fritter that everyone and anyone's an expert. If you have enough fear in the market, speak up and people will listen.

Merrill Lynch’s CEO spent over $1 million and hired the Obamas' decorator to redecorate his office last year—even as the firm faced a financial crisis.

Thain spent $1.22 million of company money to refurbish his office at Merrill Lynch headquarters in lower Manhattan. The biggest piece of the spending spree: $800,000 to hire famed celebrity designer Michael Smith, who is currently redesigning the White House for the Obama family for just $100,000.

Big ticket items included $87,000 for an area rug, four pairs of curtains for $28,000, a pair of guest chairs for $87,000 and fabric for a "Roman Shade" for $11,000.

What is this rug made of? Collateralized mortgage backed securities?

How to live for free if you're a victim of the bust: Urban RV Parks

U.S. foreclosure activity jumped 81 percent in 2008, with one in every 54 households getting at least one filing notice, suggesting various state laws and private programs to slow the process have been ineffective, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.

Nearly 3.2 million foreclosure filings on 2.3 million properties were made last year, the Irvine, California-based research firm said. Filings include notice of default, auction sale or bank repossession.

"Clearly the foreclosure prevention programs implemented to date have not had any real success in slowing down this foreclosure tsunami," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in the report.

Foreclosure activity did slow in the fourth quarter overall, declining 4 percent from the third quarter, but jumped nearly 40 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007.

And foreclosure activity last year was up 225 percent from 2006, the year home prices began a deep slump that prevented many homeowners from selling or refinancing.

Home prices have plunged more than 20 percent from the summer of 2006, according to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller measures.

Filings leaped by 17 percent in December from November.

A rather shocking story, but not an unexpected one. What's even more pertinent to the real estate investors is the lack of liquidity in acquisition and refinancing of commercial properties:

Mortgage bankers’ originations of commercial and multifamily mortgage loans dropped a whopping 53% in the third quarter compared with the same period of 2007, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.

Listen up investors. This is the time to do deals with seller financing, NOT with traditional bank financing. Easier to qualify and easier to obtain, seller financing is going to be the norm in the next 5-10 years.

What's even more interesting? Keep your eyes peeled for commercial real estate bust in next 1-2 years.

Single-Family Mortgage Loan Limits effective January 1, 2008: 
First mortgages 

• One-family loans: $417,000
• Two-family loans: $533,850
• Three-family loans: $645,300
• Four-family loans: $801,950

• $208,500
• In Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands: $312,750

What do you do? Dig up your own pond for others to drink out of (in a sense).

Seller financing, a.k.a. owner financing, seller note, owner/seller carryback, etc., is going to be a very very attractive method of financing the transaction. But why would anyone want to be the bank and hold a 30 year loan over straight up cash? Well, there are many reasons and here's a pretty good explanation of why a seller might consider it.

But you have to be careful as the buyer (i.e. who's receiving the note) OR the seller (i.e. who's the giving and holding the note) as there are risks to ANY debt instruments that are paid over time. Especially, if it's a wraparound.

Take a look at this well detailed blog post to get a feel for what's involved. And if you're doing a wraparound note, it's definitely tricker, but not impossible. But apparently, existence of seller note during a 1031-exchange might be a problem.

I recommend you seek out this method of financing, as it is cheaper (in fees, but might be higher in rate) and faster to close than traditional bank financing.