Reuters: The vacancy rate at U.S. strip malls reached a 17-year high in the third quarter and mall vacancy was the highest in at least 10 years, reflecting the protracted pull-back by consumers... "Our outlook for retail properties as a whole is bleak," Victor Calanog, Reis director of research, said. "Until we see stabilization and recovery take root in both consumer spending and business spending and hiring, we do not foresee a recovery in the retail sector until late 2012 at the earliest."
Reuters: The U.S. office vacancy rate reached a five-year high in the third quarter, pushed up by extra unused space that just about wiped out all the gains made during the commercial real estate boom... The national vacancy rate rose 0.6 percentage point to 16.5 percent from the prior quarter and is up 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier... "The last time we saw vacancies in the mid-16s was at the end of 2004," Victor Calanog, Reis director of research said.
Reuters: The U.S. apartment market in the third quarter turned in one of its weakest performances ever as the national vacancy rate hit a 23-year high... 7.8 percent... Vacancies have been rising since the third quarter of 2007... Loans on apartment buildings have led the real estate industry in defaults with hotels a close second... "It makes me wonder whether the avalanche is on its way for office and retail (real estate) unless things change really quickly and really drastically," Victor Calanog, Reis director of research, said.
+ Reuters: Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing... There are more than 6,600 home foreclosure filings per day, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Durham, North Carolina... the flood of foreclosures shows no sign of abating any time soon... the country's worst housing downturn since record-keeping began in the late 19th century may only get worse since foreclosures, which started with subprime borrowers, have now moved on to the much bigger prime loan market on the back of mounting unemployment... Michael Barr, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial institutions, said more than 6 million families could face foreclosure over the next three years.
"The recent crisis in the housing sector has devastated families and communities across the country and is at the center of our financial crisis and economic downturn," Barr said.
PS: David Winters, Portfolio Manager, Wintergreen Fund, 9/25/09 (via PBS's WealthTrack): "At Wintergreen, we're very much focused on the world beyond the United States because that's where the action is."
PPS: APM's Marketplace: Urban farming takes root in Detroit
Trailer 'Grown in Detroit' from Mascha Poppenk on Vimeo.
Urban Roots directed by Detroit-native Mark McInnis
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