How does Israel, with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around, produce more tech companies listed on the Nasdaq than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India and China combined?
The MIT Real Estate Center says that commercial property prices have dropped almost 42% over the past 2 years.
As a result of that drop, about 55% of the $1.4 trillion commercial mortgages that will mature in the next five years are underwater.
The delinquency rate for commercial mortgages climbed to 5% in October.
A year ago the delinquency rate was just 0.77%.
About half of all commercial mortgages sit on the balance sheets of smaller banks.
So the massive number of bank failures this year is significantly attributable to losses from commercial real estate.
Late last month, CIT Group, one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the world filed for bankruptcy.”
John Carney, www.BusinessInsider.com, 11-16-09
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