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Here’s a little news to buck up the real estate mavens weathered by the daily diet of recessionary news: Google has signed the largest lease in downtown Chicago in 7 years. It is a familiar story – a marquee firm relocating downtown because of the hip, cosmopolitan appeal and amenities of a CBD — but […]

It’s a sign of the times. Single-family homes, as distinct from mortgages, are an emerging asset class. For decades, investors have bought home mortgages in securitizations or as whole loans. Individual investors have built a cottage industry owning small numbers of rental homes. Institutions have been buying commercial real estate in various forms. Public and […]

What will solve the housing crisis? The Keynesians think it’s a government bailout and the Hayekians think it will ultimately be the invisible hand and spontaneous order of supply and demand that will ameliorate the underwater single-family home sector. Well, could it both? In other words, the government steps in to structure a private sector […]

On June 29, Congress avoided doubling interest rates for new federal student loans. Republicans and Democrats came together to keep interest rates on new Stafford loans, which are subsidized by the federal government, at 3.4 percent. The rates were set to double in July. It’s good news not just for matriculating freshmen but also for […]

The French soothsayer, Michel de Nostredame or Nostradamus, became something of a celebrity starting in the 1550s because of his prophecies in all he made 6,338 predictions in a series of almanacs — everything from plagues to invasions to the end of the world. People still raise his name today when they speak about impending […]

During this campaign year, you’ve heard about politicians referring to our country as a welfare state, heavy with unaffordable entitlements for seniors that are stalling our economic growth.  Our growing welfare state is slated to cost $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years-that’s $72,000 a household, said Mitt Romney to voters in Bedford, N.H., on […]

People who don’t follow the capital markets on a continuing basis might be forgiven for thinking that LIBOR was the name of a fitness instructor from Norway. But no, it’s actually what a lot of people in the business world, including those of us in real estate, look to benchmark the interest rates that we […]

80,000 was the number. 200,000 is what we need for this to feel like a recovery. And 8.2 is the number that keeps hanging on.  The nation’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2% (that’s 13 million unemployed workers) for the second consecutive month, the Labor Department said Friday.  Businesses added just 84,000 jobs, while governments […]

For a man who once said, “I’d rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I’m forty-five”, the  50th birthday of the Rolling Stones must come as a surprise. That’s right the British Invasion’s most enduring act celebrates its golden anniversary July 12, 2012.  Founded in London in 1962 by Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, […]

Climate change isn’t new. A recent study found that it destroyed an ancient civilization approximately 4,000 years ago. The gradual eastward movement of monsoons across Asia at first supported the formation of the Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley by allowing large-scale agricultural production, then wiped out the civilization as water supplies disappeared.  This the initial […]