Posted by Jordan Crouch on January 8, 2008
Earthlab Foundation ranks the top cities in the United States by their “Green-ness”. Below is the ranking, notice two Pacific Northwest cities made the top ten list. The ranking is based on residential households not commercial real estate. The commercial industry usually follows residential in trends. We are already seeing Green development in commercial real estate (especially in the cities below) and I would expect it to become even more prominent.
Top 10 Green Cities
1. Chicago, IL
2. New York, NY
3. Boston, MA
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. Philadelphia, PA
6. Minneapolis, MN
7. San Francisco, CA
8. Seattle, WA
9. Austin, TX
10. Portland, OR
Posted in Green | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jordan Crouch on January 7, 2008
For a holiday week, the economy moved quite a bit, mostly downward, last week. The employment and manufacturing reports were down while oil hit an all-time high of $100 per barrel. Anyone that traveled abroad knows the pain of our weak dollar. There is still concern about the economy slowing.
The commercial real estate market is trudging along, looking especially good in the Northwest. Most CMBS lenders are pricing themselves out of the market with Life Insurance Companies and the government agencies fighting for the deals out there. The Ten Year T-bill yield is still low keeping interest rates in the 6% range.
Posted in Capital Markets | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jordan Crouch on January 4, 2008
New Year, New Look, New Domain. Everything is changing here at Adventures in Mortgage Banking.
I want to wish my readers a Happy New Year! After traveling up and down the West coast for the holidays, it is nice to be back in Seattle. Hopefully you are as excited about 2008 as I am. Expect great articles on all manner of things related to finance and commercial real estate. I will continue to cover major commercial real estate news in the Northwest as well as national financing trends. I also reserve the right to include a random post now and then. Look for a NEW quarterly newsletter in April. I have a few other ideas as well.
As always, I appreciate any and all feedback and questions you might have. Leave it in the comments or shoot me an email at jcrouch@nbsfinancial.com.
Here’s to the start of a great 2008!
Posted in Finance 101 | Leave a Comment »
