Category: Top National News

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 11, 2017–Peter Grant (subscription)Lenders closed $491 billion of mortgage loans in 2016, down 3% from 2015, according to new statistics from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Most of the decline occurred in the fourth quarter, when volume was 7% lower than the same quarter in 2015.

The Real Deal (Los Angeles), Apr. 11, 2017Banks are aggressively lending on commercial properties even as developers and equity investors are starting to pull back amid fears of a downturn. Total U.S. commercial real estate lending volume decreased slightly to $491 billion in 2016–down 3 percent from 2015, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 11, 2017–Peter Grant (subscription)Carnegie Hall Tower, the Manhattan office skyscraper that helped shore up the finances of the fabled concert hall, refinanced its debt with a $325 million loan from Metropolitan Life Insurance.

Wall Street Journal, Apr. 11, 2017–Shibani Mahtani, Andrew Tangel (subscription)The tide of companies moving back to big cities in search of talent and better transportation links is rising, reviving many downtowns at the expense of suburbs and smaller communities.

National Mortgage News, Apr. 11, 2017–Andy Peters (subscription)A litany of bankruptcies among retailers has many lenders on edge as they and others try to predict how much damage it could do to bank earnings–and how soon.

Business Insider, Mar. 30, 2017–Stephen McBrideBearish bets against commercial loans jumped 50% year-over-year in February.

NPR Marketplace, Mar. 30, 2017–Molly Wood, Maria HollenhorstCrowdfunding has become a popular source of development financing, said Rodrigo Niño of Prodigy Network, which uses crowdfunding to build commercial real estate.

Forbes, Apr. 3, 2017–Stephen McBrideAt its March meeting, the Federal Reserve said monetary policy will remain accommodative “for some time.” This willingness to let inflation “run hot” means even as nominal rates rise, real rates–that is, the nominal interest rate minus inflation–are headed into negative territory.

National Real Estate Investor, April 3, 2017–Eli RazinBank of the Ozarks, based in Little Rock, Ark., broke into CrediFi’s ranking of the top 10 New York City lenders in the fourth quarter of 2016 with over $500 million in loan originations and a 3.0 percent market share.

HousingWire, Mar. 31, 2017–Ben LaneFriday, the company announced that it is growing its single-family rental portfolio again, in another deal with Amherst Holdings affiliates.