Two camps have emerged. The first is what I will refer to as the “Disaster Camp” and the second is the “Recovery Camp.”

The Disaster Camp (DC) is the illusive analysts whose cryptic research clearly indicates we are entering an era of melt-down. The DC guys and gals come at us armed with their complex charts and narratives that prove conclusively that we are headed into doomsday.

The Recovery Camp (RC) is equally persuasive with their slick, bullet-pointed PowerPoint presentations. The RC camp trumpets phrases like “sidelined investor capital waiting to be spent” and “Bond money waiting to pounce on market opportunities.”

After all is said and done, more will have been said than done! I’m conflicted as a result of the plethora of combative voices that leave me feeling as if I have just stepped off a wild roller-coaster and cannot gain my bearings.

As we enter 2010, I’m a lot like many of my clients, nauseated and bewildered and I am vowing here and now to never ride that roller coaster again.

For at least the opening stages of 2010, I am going to go back to trusting the basic fundamentals of investment and my instincts. In the early part of 2010 I’m resolving to delete all of the emails that are in the DC and RC camp. Away with the charts and the PDFs that tell many tales.

Here is what I am going to do in 2010…return to trusting me, myself and I. Oh, I will be forced to gaze at many more PowerPoint prophets and read many more detailed documents designed to either scare me into sleeplessness or fill me with the phony messages of hope beyond reason.

My thought is that 2010 is going to be a year of disaster AND recovery. We will eat at both sides of that aweful table made up of vinegar and sugar. That is why I am going to return to trusting myself and to a healthy avoidance of investment extremism. I’m inviting you to do the same.

President Barack Obama

The Obama Administration has been funneling billions of dollars into lending institutions and dedicating billions more to the housing industry and its hoped-for recovery. This begs the question, is the President ignoring the problems now surfacing in the commercial property sector of the economy?

The short answer is yes. The longer and more complicated explanation may lie in understanding the fundamentals of the lending and insurance industries as they are the prime note holders and owners of much of the nation’s commercial real estate.

Although commercial property value declines are now underway in almost every property category, lending institutions may be free to use TARP and other funds to shore up the ailing commercial market.

A high percentage of commercial real estate owners (estimates are between 40% and 80%) will find refinancing difficult from 2009 through 2012 as 3 and 5 year note calls begin to kick-in and owners face a new set of qualifying requirements designed to reduce lender risks in commercial property lending.

There appears to be more creative liquidation and seller financing emerging in the market as owners face the reality of a shrinking market and the pressure to create cash flow.

Creative financing has been and will continue to be a major factor in structuring transactions during the commercial real estate recovery. We have been recommending that owners who can take on the roll of lender do so as this leverage enables competitive pricing and can produce healthy yields over the long haul.

It will be some time before we have any definitive indicators that the President’s overall approach to the economy has helped or harmed the commercial real estate sector.

This post written by and sponsored by Donald Teel, a Commercial Real Estate Specialist in Prescott, Arizona affiliated with Arizona Commercial. Donald can be reached by calling him toll free at 1-877-777-9100.