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Inside Real Estate Crowdfunding

May 9, 2016 by Randybaconin Commercial Mortgage Lending, Real EstateLeave a Comment

(Bloomberg)—Last month a Houston-area entrepreneur took to Craigslist with a surprising offer: For $50,000, the author of the listing would part with 5 percent of a real estate crowdfunding startup that he said would generate profit within three months. It doesn’t take a lawyer to suggest that Craigslist might be a bad place to source startup investments. (The author of the post wasn’t available for comment when this story went to press.) But the post illustrates what some real estate investors have noticed: These crowdfunding platforms are everywhere.

Inside the Real Estate Crowdfunding Land Rush

Investors used U.S. real estate crowdfunding platforms to pour $484 million into real estate projects last year, according to research published last month by the Cambridge Judge Business School. That’s more than three times the amount in 2014. Meanwhile, the U.S. has more than 125 real estate crowdfunding sites, according to Jason Best, a partner at Crowdfund Capital Advisors, who helped conceive the framework for crowdfunding. Less than three years after the JOBS Act made it legal to solicit investments online, real estate crowdfunding sites are all over the place.

Kind of.

The idea behind crowdfunding, whether for gadgets on Kickstarter or medical procedures on GoFundMe, is to create an online place where people who need money can meet people who have it. In the case of real estate, that often means house flippers who buy, renovate, and sell single-family homes seeking loans from accredited investors—roughly speaking, people who make enough money that they can afford to lose some of it. Some platforms also let investors buy equity stakes in real estate projects or fund loans for larger commercial projects. At least two companies, Washington-based Fundrise, and Atlanta-based GroundFloor, have created mechanisms to let anyone invest, not just rich people.

View entire article at National Real Estate Investor

To find out more about various real estate financing options contact Liberty

5 Killer Apps to Maximize Commercial Real Estate Productivity

January 25, 2016 by Randybaconin Real Estate, TechnologyLeave a Comment

boxer-screenshot

Prior to getting my CRE tech startup, Digsy, off the ground, I was a commercial real estate agent for Lee & Associates. I worked there for 12 years and was promoted to Senior Vice President & Principal of the firm when I was 25 years old. I attribute much of my success to my unsatiated obsession using technology tools to improve my productivity and workflow so I could win more clients and quickly close more deals. This obsession with productivity remains today.

The technology available today is smarter and more efficient than it was when I was a commercial real estate. My tech tools help me maximize my productivity each and every day.

The context of how I use these apps has changed because instead of being an agent, I now run a CRE tech startup. Instead of trying to find tenants and landlords to use my brokerage services and sign off on a lease, I now use these tools to recruit amazing software developers, get VCs to fund us, and get tenants to use our CRE platform to find the best commercial real estate agents to help our clients find commercial space.

Although I don’t use these tools from the perspective of a CRE broker, the end-goal is the same: get funded, get more clients & close more deals.

Being an entrepreneur is a super busy, never-ending list of things to get done. Here are the apps I use to kick ass and take names throughout the day and be ultra productive:

Boxer — My Favorite Email App

Email not only drives the day of commercial real estate agents, it also does so for CEOs & Founders. Like many CRE agents, I get over 500 emails a day and it’s crucial for me to be able to process them quickly. This is why I love using Boxer. With Boxer I can set-up reply templates to quickly respond to emails with one tap. I love the HTML reply template feature because it allows me to quickly respond with an email that includes a link to a pitch deck, marketing brochure, etc.

View entire article at CRE Radio & TV at there website Creradio.com

To discuss commercial mortgage financing needs contact Liberty Realty Capital Group.

Sears: Auto Centers Reveal Big Picture Problems For Company

January 6, 2016 by Randybaconin Real EstateLeave a Comment

Summary

Sears Auto Centers aren’t being sold to a 3rd party.

Seritage has the right to recapture 100% of the Sears Auto Centers.

The Sears Auto Center real estate doesn’t appear to be moving.

We decided to write an article on Sears Auto Centers because we believe it exemplifies one of the major flaws in the long thesis on Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD). Sears Auto Center represents a tiny portion of Sears’ overall revenue, but the flaw we will discuss permeates a large portion of the investment valuation for Sears. It also demonstrates when reasoning can go bad.

What is the flaw? We believe that many investors have artificially inflated the value of Sears by valuing the real estate of Sears independent of the underlying retail business. Because Sears continues to lose money the net asset valuation calculations used by investors fail to account for these ongoing losses, and thus their calculations might be artificially high. Also, some have suggested that combined with the real estate, that the businesses owned by Sears have hidden values in of themselves that can be monetized outside of Sears (for example, KCD brands). Hence, they get the value of the real estate plus the value assigned to the different operating businesses. We believe that this represents a form of double dipping. Either you value the operating businesses or you value the real estate with no operating businesses. And the experience with Sears Auto Centers offers one example of why this might be important.

The Market Cap Myth

First we wanted to take a brief moment to address one issue. We hope that this helps educate the average investor on how to think about property valuations, as it offers a cautionary tale. Also, we think it demonstrates how investors need to be skeptical in their reliance on other people’s work (including ours). In the Fairholme presentation on Sears, Fairholme offered the attached slide.

View entire article at Seeking Alpha.com

To discuss commercial mortgage financing needs contact Liberty Realty Capital.

Banks’ Commercial Real Estate Lending Under Fire

January 4, 2016 by Randybaconin Commercial Mortgage Lending, Real EstateLeave a Comment

US Regulators Call Out Lenders Over Low Standards

The three main US banking regulators, the Federal Reserve, FDIC and OCC, say they plan to clean up sketchy lending practices—which are running rampant, just like before the 2008 crisis. Real estate values have surged since 2010, and competing banks have dropped lending standards to get their piece of the loan action, Bloomberg reports. The OCC called out low-standard lending last week—Comptroller Thomas Curry says banks are chucking sound underwriting, risk management and loan-loss provisioning in their bid for cash and expansion.

To discuss commercial mortgage financing needs contact Liberty Realty Capital.

Capital Spigot Is Wide Open

December 7, 2015 by Randybaconin Commercial Mortgage Lending, Real EstateLeave a Comment

Borrowers are reveling in a market where capital is both cheap and plentiful, and even an expected rise in interest rates is not likely to take the wind out of the sails of the current robust lending climate.

“We’re enjoying the benefits of a great market,” says Ernie Katai, executive vice president and head of production at Berkadia, a commercial real estate company. Although 2014 was a record year for the firm in financing, year-over-year volume surged another 70 percent in 2015. Part of that jump can be attributed to a single $5.1 billion portfolio transaction. But excluding that deal the firm’s numbers would still be up 40 percent for the year, notes Katai.

Based on overall market liquidity, that momentum is expected to carry over into 2016. Lenders are keeping an eye on international headlines, notably the recent terrorist attacks and continued threats in Europe. However, lenders and financial intermediaries remain optimistic about the coming year. “Short of something outside of our control happening, the market for 2016 looks poised for another strong year,” Katai says.

Read entire article in National Real Estate Investor online here http://nreionline.com/finance-investment/capital-spigot-wide-openhttp://nreionline.com/finance-investment/capital-spigot-wide-open

To discuss commercial mortgage financing needs contact Liberty Realty Capital.

Shrinking U.S. Shopping Malls Get Makeovers

December 2, 2015 by Randybaconin Commercial Mortgage Lending, Real EstateLeave a Comment

Visitors used to flock to the Highland Mall in Austin, Texas, around the holidays to stroll through the city’s first enclosed shopping complex and admire the giant Christmas tree crafted from poinsettia plants.

But this holiday season, no shopping will be done there. Workers are converting the 600,000-square-foot structure into a campus for Austin Community College with classrooms, lab space and a culinary arts center.

Austin’s economy is strong and its population swelling, but Highland couldn’t attract enough shoppers to stay afloat.

“Competition came up and killed it,” said Matt Whelan, principal at developer Red Leaf Properties LLC, which is working with the college on the project.

An era of relentless expansion for American shopping centers is coming to an end as a toxic brew of overbuilding, the rise of e-commerce and a wave of retailer bankruptcies force landlords to reimagine once-lucrative properties.

Some owners are converting struggling malls into apartments, offices and industrial space, while others are turning big chunks of retail space into parks and playgrounds to keep shoppers interested.

“You have to create an environment that people want to come to,” said Tony Ruggeri, who eliminated about 50,000 square feet of retail space to create an open-air plaza at West Manchester Town Center in York, Pa., which reopened last year.

View entire article here in the Wall Street Journal.

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To discuss commercial mortgage financing needs contact Liberty Realty Capital Group.