Category: General News

As mentioned on the message boards here by BearNJ and others Brookfield Corporation has defaulted again on office properties.

This is the second this year and so far maybe near a billion bucks so far.

I also was not aware that PIMCO also defaulted on a $1.7 billion in office mortgages earlier this year.

This Forbes article has much good information in it.

All of this is why I warned on commercial mREITs a month or two ago – and sold what I had earlier this year–it could be a real bloodbath.

I am out of the office for a few days this week so am without some of my equipment to effectively post information (beyond plain test) so I will not be posted headlines in the evening. I will be back into normal mode Friday morning.

After a year or two of considering adding ‘donation’ capabilities I have now launched the donation page.

Donations are an alternative to advertising supported websites–which is what the old ‘Yield Hunter‘ website was, or to subscription based websites. Neither of these models are very attractive to me. Advertising takes up too much ‘real estate’ on the web page, while subscription limits the amount of participation in the commenting section and this is key (in my mind) to providing a needed exchange of ideas.

I have received a few donations already—I received one in the snail mail from a very generous individual and others from folks who somehow found my donation page before I announced it. I am hopeful that we will have strong participation in donations so that I can make some needed updates and expansions of the website. I have no idea at all if a ‘donation’ page can generate much money, but I guess we will find out.

The donation page has the capabilities to accept ‘one time donations’ or to accept monthly ‘recurring’ donations which seems to be a good option.

Note that the only information I receive is a name and a email address. Processing is through Paypal (and of course they take a processing fee).

Thanks in advance for everyone’s support–we have a great community of contributors.

Freddie Mac has reported that mortgage rates on the 30 year mortgage moved just a bit lower to 6.27% which is just 4 basis points lower than than a week ago–the high for the cycle has been 7.08%. The 15 year mortgage was up 15 basis points to 5.69%–the high for this cycle has been 6.36%

I watch rates just to get a sense for some general economic conditions (or potential conditions). Right now in the midwest sales of homes are getting pretty sparse–and obviously refinancing’s are few and far between although there is a far amount of activity in home equity loan applications. These are my own observations in Minnesota now, but I suspect that it mirrors the country.

Property values (single family residential) are close to stable in Minnesota–marketing times are longer, but with the lack of inventory values have held up–subject to change at any time. Almost always values in the midwest follow the east and west coast–both on the way up and the way down.

Freddie Mac data is here.

Well we got the PCE (personal consumption expenditures) this morning and the numbers were a tiny bit hot. The price index was 6.2% versus 6.4% a year ago (year on year). The core rate ran at 4.9% versus 4.6% a year ago. Bottom line is no real relief in this inflation gauge which Jay Powell claims to be his favorite gauge.

Stock indexes are off just a bit while the 10 year treasury is 3 basis points lower at 3.71%.

So today is another day I plan to watch and not buy–but a nibble will be taken if a current holding takes a giant tumble—each day it seems like there is something that gets hammered.