I noticed that many pundits are focusing on single family residential market, most likely because it is in the news so often. It is bad, very bad. I am an ex-residential real estate investor who sold off in 2005 due to fundamentals that were totally out of whack. It appears that many do not see how precarious the commercial sector has become, with many deals being done at 2-5% cap rates (net profit yields) in Manhattan and many major metro areas, which is absolutely ridiculous considering the risk and illiquidity of these deals. The compensation for these deals are coming no where near justifying the risk. I am sure the excessive liquidity coupled with significant demand caused the cap rate compression, but the buyers fell for it assuming liquidity and demand would continue for some time. Well, corporate liquidity has just dried up, and

many are stuck holding the bag with buildings that are yielding as low as half that of treasuries, yet easily quadrupling the risk. Some are even selling at lower cap rates in successful flips (reference the Blackstone purchase of Sam Zell's portfolio, which was totally overpriced, yet Blackstone managed to flip much of the portfolio over to speculators, some of which actually flipped it over to someone else at a profit - ALL in a period of a few months). This has now become nigh in impossible, but in an attempt to raise the cap rates, commercial rents have skyrocketed to all time highs in the major metro areas, causing significant pressure on corporate profits (I have inside knowledge of this affecting MAJOR public and private firms who are looking to expand and are getting squeezed).

And now, on to small residential (single family and 1-4 family residential)...
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