Real Estate Transactions

RETAIL:

New Quest Properties has sold retail assets in Texas totaling nearly 900,000 square feet to Inland American Real Estate Trust for $172 million and the transaction included the following properties in the Houston area, Bay Colony Town Center in League City, Cy Fair Town Center, Antoine Town Center, Victory Lakes Town Center in League City,in League City and the Eldridge Lakes and the average occupancy for the portfolio is higher than 90 percent.

INDUSTRIAL:

Justin Bielamowicz and Mary Kay Bielamowicz have purchased a 3,000-square-foot building at 8070 Taylor Road and the thomas Leger and Mike Spears of the National Realty Group represented the seller, Nathan Ingrtam to the russell Coots of Re/Max Memorial Realty represented the buyers.

LAND:

Kehl–Huntsville has sold 4 acres on Veterans Memorial Parkway for development of a Tractor Supply store to the william McDade, Peter Mainguy and Kristen McDade of CBRE represented the seller. CBRE will market the remaining 23 acres on behalf of Kehl with tracts fronting Interstate45, Veterans Memorial and Parkwood Street.

INDUSTRIAL:

Back Bay Holdings has purchased a 4,000-square-foot office and warehouse on 2.8 acres at 11344 Interstate 10 East in Baytown J. Wade Sinclair with Claire Sinclair Properties brokered to the for a transaction.

LAND:

The Cantex Continuing Care Network has purchased 5.3 acres on Creekside Forest Drive, near Gosling Road in The Woodlands Village of Creekside Park for a 112-bed 66,000-square-foot skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility and construction is planned to begin in the 3rd quarter of 2012 and the opening planned for the 3rd quarter of 2013 for the ashley Yoder of Colliers International represented Cantex.

Commercial Real Estate Execs Trim

Reflecting concerns about the pace of economic recovery, Washington's ability to address fiscal and tax policy challenges a host of new regulatory requirements and the long-term European debt situation, Real Estate Roundtable's latest "Sentiment Index" of commercial real estate executives slid for the 2nd quarter in a row hitting its lowest point since the fall of 2009 after rising slightly at the beginning of the year and remaining at 77 (out of 100) points in Q2, the overall Index tumbled to 69 in Q3 and to 59 in the latest survey indicating a material shift in perceptions on current and future market conditions, property valuations, and access to debt and equity capital.

For the 1st time in two years, a significant portion of respondents see conditions as worse than a year ago and predict a decline in the coming year," said the Oct. 27 survey report, prepared on The Roundtable's behalf by FPL Associates Data collection for the survey was conducted Oct. 3–12, in advance of today's encouraging news that European leaders have reached a deal to tackle the euro-zone debt crisis and for much of the past year.

we have been concerned about the uneven, or 'bifurcated,' nature of the commercial real estate recovery and have focused on policy ideas to foster job growth and broaden this recovery beyond the urban 'gateway' markets" said Roundtable President and CEO Jeffrey D. DeBoer.

U.S. Commercial Real Estate Investors Forecast Weak.

U.S. commercial real estate investors believe occupancy and rental rates in most U.S markets will stay soft in 2012 and the competition to buy property in a handful of promising areas could get dangerously hot according to an influential survey released on Wednesday to almost three years after the U.S economy hit bottom a recovery seems to be nearly stalled.

There is no driver of jobs to create demand for office space in boost consumer spending at malls and shopping centers, and raise demand for warehouses to store goods and the "Tenants hold all the cards and instead of expanding, some shrink their space requirement," one investor said during an interview compiled for the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2012 survey.

Report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute, involves a survey of 950 of the most influential U.S. real estate investors and executives in order to gauge outlook for next year in the investors risk overpaying top properties in leading markets such as New York, Washington and San Francisco and certain secondary cities such as Austin.

Even as loans and equity become more readily available to finance purchases next year, investors are wise not to overpay or use too much borrowed money, the survey said that instead they are advised to chose projects that meet their realistic cash flow projections investors who buy well-leased stable buildings are expected to reap single-digit income returns, according to the survey.

Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities

Home Prices in U.S. Cities Probably Fell at Slower Pace in Year to August in Home prices in 20 U.S. cities probably fell at a slower pace and consumer confidence hovered near a two-year low, highlighting the obstacles facing the recovery in its 3rd year economists said, before reports today.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities dropped 3.5 percent in August from the same month in 2010 after decreasing 4.1 percent in the year ended July to the median forecast of 29 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the confidence rose to 46 this month from 45.4 in September to separate figures may show to recovering the 31 percent plunge in home prices from their 2006 peak will probably be years in the making as foreclosures throw more properties to the market and sales flag.

Federal Reserve policy makers like William Dudley are among those that believe bolstering housing is among the “most pressing issues” facing the central bank and the small improvement in home prices is a positive to though it hardly changes the story that the housing market will take years to clean up said, Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto consumer confidence will remain quite fragile as there are still many negatives out there.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index, based on a three-month average, is due at 9 a.m. New York time for a survey estimates ranged from declines of 3 percent to 4.3 percent and the New York-based Conference Board’s consumer confidence gauge is due at 10 a.m in the Bloomberg survey median was based on 75 estimates that ranged from 42.5 to 52 and the measure reached a two-year low of 45.2 in August.

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On Real Estate And Energy Sector

A Houston real estate attorney has launched an investment fund to develop and acquire properties with ties to the energy sector and the new fund, Mesa Real Estate Partners, has already purchased 28 properties worth $75 million in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and North Dakota for the most of the assets 1.1 million square feet in total are industrial or commercial buildings leased to tenants involved in the emerging shale regions across North America to the buildings are in Houston, but many of the companies that lease space in the buildings are based here.

Tim Horan, a Houston-based real estate attorney and president of the fund, expects Mesa to grow to $250 million in the next few years and all these shale plays are proliferating, Horan said, as new areas come on stream, the service companies all flock there and need real estate facilities to house their people and to the oran would like to take the company public as a real estate investment trust in four or 5 years to that would be one of our exit strategies, he said.

Horan raised $100 million from 58 investors, most of whom are current and former oil field service company executives in the investors include Philip Burguieres, John Huff, energy investment bank PPHB, Palmetto Partners and B-29 Investments, a private investment firm owned by John and Steve Schmitz of Gainesville and to the fund is also pursuing about a dozen new development deals.

Blackstone Group LP Has Agreed To Acquire More Than $1 Billion In The Suburban Office Buildings.

Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest private-equity firm, agreed to pay $1.08 billion to buy Duke Realty Corp.’s suburban office holdings in U.S cities including Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta and the blackstone Real Estate Partners VII will buy the 82 buildings with a combined 10.1 million square feet (938,000 square meters) of space, Indianapolis-based Duke Realty said in a statement and they include “substantially” all of Duke’s wholly owned suburban office properties in the Midwest and South.

Blackstone has invested more than $7 billion in real estate this year and has raised $4 billion for its latest property fund in the New York-based firm expects to exceed $10 billion, Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said yesterday and the managers such as Fortress Investment Group LLC, Colony Capital LLC and Starwood Capital Group LLC also are pitching new property funds and the blackstone has a lot of capital to deploy to need to it in large chunks, Ben Thypin, director of market analysis for New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc, said in a telephone interview.

In April, Blackstone said a fourfold increase in profit from its real estate funds helped the company post its best quarterly results since going public in 2007 and the September, the company agreed to buy 36 U.S. shopping centers from Equity One Inc $473.1 million it also paid $9 billion for the U.S malls of Melbourne-based Centro Properties Group in June in its largest transaction since the leveraged buyout boom collapsed in 2007.

Duke Realty’s Chief Executive Officer Denny Oklak said the sale is a continuation of our strategic plan to reduce our investment in suburban office properties and the money generated from the transaction will be used for the acquisition and development of industrial and medical properties, and to reduce debt, he said in the statement for the purchase price includes $30 million of assumed debt, according to Duke’s statement and the duke Realty rose 3.5 percent to $11.05 as of 1:10 p.m in New York and the shares have lost 11 percent this year compared with a 2.3 percent drop in the Bloomberg REIT index.

The Jobless Claims in U.S.

Oct 20 (Bloomberg) The number of Americans filing applications for the unemployment benefits declined last week to a level that shows little improvement in the labor market since the start a year and the jobless claims dropped by 6,000 to 403,000 in the week ended Oct 15 for the Labor Department figures showed today in Washington for a median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for a drop to 400,000 applications to a 4 week average fell to the lowest level since April.

The companies are still paring their workforces at the same time demand has fallen short of the level that may spur businesses to expand staff to lack of employment growth is limiting consumer spending and restraining the recovery and the underscores the challenge for President Barack Obama, who is trying to push Congress to pass parts of his jobs initiative to We’re running in place, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, who projected 405,000 claims and the data are “consistent with lackluster to moderate growth in the job market and the economy, he said.

The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls rose, while those receiving extended payments fell, today’s report showed to a jobless benefits applications were projected to decline from 404,000 initially reported for the prior week in according to the median forecast of 46 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Claims at the end of 2010 stood at 418,000 and the estimates ranged from 390,000 to 420,000 to the Labor Department revised the prior week’s figure up to 409,000.