HAMP, or the Home Affordable Modification Program, an initiative that the Obama administration has been pursuing recently, is missing quite a few of its intended marks. Like its name suggests, HAMP was intended to target 3 million struggling homeowners at risk of foreclosure by working with their lenders to lower or modify monthly mortgage payments so that these individuals could stay in their homes. Of course, like any program the government pushes, there are many flaws. HAMP is no exception. According ... read more

National commercial real estate trends continue to reflect weakness. Housingwire.com (Gaffney, 8/26/10) notes that 88 percent of respondents to a development survey stated that development was almost non-existent in their markets. Such is the case here in Las Vegas as well and while there is still some construction in office, retail and industrial, there is almost no planned product and no planned product that we are aware of in industrial. Similarly, on REIT.com, Green Street Advisors analyst Steven Frankel als... read more

We have discussed the buyer-seller disconnect several times. Few commercial transactions have been consumated in the past couple of years as sellers have either refused to lower prices due to a different read of the fundamentals, they cannot liquidate due to capital constraints (writedowns for bank owned) or that they simply do not understand what they own or just replace number driven judgements with hope. Similarly, some buyers are unrealistic about pricing. They often believe that everything is distressed and ca... read more

We have a bit of a fascination with real estate price indices. This is simply because of the disparity in different measurements. At Market IQ, we tend not to like average prices since averages are sensitive to outliers. However, when we go out with buyers and look for homes, we tend to "feel" the average more than any other number so it does have its utility in describing the market. Medians are useful but imperfect as well since like averages, they are affected by the changing mix of home sold in each s... read more

Coldwell Banker Premier Realty Commercial Agent Honored Second Time as the U.S. Small Business Administration's Choice For only the second time during this current commercial real estate market challenge, the SBA lists another building for sale -- opting to work with the real estate profession who represented the agency previously   Las Vegas -- Aug 04, 2010 / (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- Ron Opfer, Director of Commercial Real Estate Special Asset Solutions with Coldwell Banker Premier Realty, was chos... read more