Big Property Holders Cashing Out
This SF Gate.com real estate roundup has more than one bit of news on the property boom. First a quick profit is to be had in condo's, and I mean quick! "It's certainly a ripe time to cash in, although some economists say a housing bubble may exist in San Joses. Berkes, however, said he is excited by a 'dynamic pricing environment', in other words, prices may go up by the hour."
The next tidbit is more coincidental. "A Fremont shopping center has been sold to investor Lakha Properties, which paid $41 million..The seller, Met Life, wanted a quick close of escrow."
"Tishman Speyer just paid a record $1.72 billion for the Met Life building above New York's Grand Central Terminal, so there's still a lot of cash to throw at fully leased office properties."
So Met Life is selling left and right. Do you suppose they see a market top? And by the way, it wasn't fully leased.
8 Comments:
They are going to get slaughtered owning that shopping center. When people get killed on their RE investments there is going to be a big pull back in consumer spending at... malls ! They've double leveraged themselves because the mall income is going to fall and the mall RE value is going to crash. WOW.
BTW: I've heard that several retailers includng ToysRUs are considering converting to a RE trust and renting their space back because of the absolutely stupid money they can get for the land they sit on.
I suspect that at some point whole new cities are going to spring up in the middle of nowhere because the land will be cheap... for a while at least.
Hasn't this RE bubble entered the "absolutely stupid" stage ?????
Coxe calls this stage the "Shared Mistake", generally meaning that the whole market has it wrong but doesn't yet realize it. When they do, there will be a huge shakeout.
Ben, I am an avid reader of this blog and you are doing a great job. I think a quick fact check is in order. As a former New Yorker, I remember the Met Life building was originally the Pan Am building built in the late 1950s and sold to Met Life in the eighties when Pan Am needed to raise cash to postpone its eventual bankruptcy.
(the Met Life building was originally the Pan Am building built in the late 1950s and sold to Met Life in the eighties)
I was operating on memory, could very well be wrong. I thought I read it was built in 1909 just for Met. Thanks for the correction.
anon,
Fixed it. Thanks! Ben
Calls to abolish Al's "Ponzi Scheme", the Fed: http://wallstreetexaminer.com/?itemid=664
The economy is a contradiction:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050410/economic_contradictions.html?.v=2
It is hard to believe that 2 weeks ago there were no comments on these articles. Now we have debates and contributions.
regarding the Met Life building(s) - you guys are both right. There is a Met Life tower on 23rd & Madison that was built in 1909 - and another Met Life building, the former Pan Am building connected to Grand Central Station, built in the early 60's. Met Life has sold BOTH of them in the past month or two.
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