Home » » Tidbits - November 16, 2009 edition

Tidbits - November 16, 2009 edition

Haven't done any tidbits in a while, so here goes!

Block 37 - everyone is talking. Gee, you think the judge and Mayor Daley might have told Freed and B of A to lock themselves away in a conference room and not come out without a solution and an opening of the center before Thanksgiving?

Seventh Circuit reverses en banc on the FHA mezuzah case between residents and their the condo association. Read here for the opinion, in which the two judges who originally sided with the association changed their minds. (Thank goodness, thanks to changes in the law, we won't be seeing any more cases like this.)

Finally, a CMBS sells courtesy of Developers Diversified. Alas, it is only $400 million.

AMB says industrial demand and activity will pick up. What did you think they would say: "The market sucks and will continue to do so until 2017 -- we'll see you then?"

David Bodamer has a great post captioned, "Tracing the Commercial Real Estate Boom and Bust." And Deal Junkie has Bernanke's hopefully positive comments on opening up CMBS and a good CNBC video featuring Meredith Whitney. Let's face it -- unless we get money flowing into deals, things are going to get (Cue Arte Johnson).

Ho-hum department: InkStop files Chapter 7. Back in October they said they were temporarily closing their stores to restructure and concentrate on cash flow. Was that a howler.

These two stories about the hits lenders are taking is probably why they are skittish or unable to jump back into real estate, even if pricing does makes sense now.