This article introduces the federal Small Business Administration (SBA), and explains how real estate brokers can take advantage of SBA lending programs to generate income property transactions.

While the housing market continues to stagnate, commercial property landlords are finding themselves in the same boat. For instance, in the Sacramento region, vacancy rates for the second quarter of 2010 fell to 13.4%, down from 13.7% in the first quarter 2010. It has been predicted that vacancy rates may fall as low as 11% [...]

The current economic climate has created a glut of available retail space. Landlords, in an effort to reduce the loss of rent from vacant space, have begun renting to short-term businesses called pop-ups. Pop-up retailers enter into lease agreements running for a few days to a few months, but the idea is to give pop-up [...]

Mezzanine loans made to entities that own commercial property loans, loans that all but dried up after the financial crisis, are resurfacing this year. Mezzanine loans are equity loans based on the net equity in the market value of a commercial property owned by a limited liability company (LLC), limited partnership (LP) or corporation. These [...]

Commercial property, like its residential property brethren, boomed between 2002 and 2007. Now, as we are traversing the long plateau of the Great Recession, commercial property in California has lost approximately 40% of its value since the 2007 peak, a bane to owners of apartment complexes, office buildings and malls alike. On a positive note, [...]

A report released by a congressional panel flagged commercial real estate loans as a danger to the stability of the economy. Between now and 2014, around $1.4 trillion worth of commercial loans will become due, requiring the loans to be paid in full (known as a balloon payment). Close to half of these properties are [...]

A digest of recent court cases affecting real estate.

Though the stock market is showing modest improvement (if it is not a “dead cat bounce”), the same cannot be said for the growing number of distressed commercial properties in California. Many cash-strapped businesses have downsized their work forces and have ceased new hiring. As a direct result of this labor force reduction, the need [...]

The distressed-sale epidemic has recently spread from residential to commercial properties. In an ominous harbinger of the troubled future, a private equity firm in San Francisco negotiated to cancel debt by delivering the lender a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure on a partially occupied distressed office property. The note was reportedly discounted to 40% of the current [...]

Once the fourth largest employer in the Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the construction industry has gone into stasis, cancelling projects, slashing jobs, and vanquishing any hope that it will lead the troubled region out of this recession. The number of housing permits issued in California dropped precipitously between 2005 and 2009, and this fluctuation [...]