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My first Broker, the Del Webb Corporation, was big on fast failure. The principle and skill of what I now call Terminatio Simulatio Velociter was drilled into the head of each fledgling Sales Counselor whose job it was to meet, greet and qualify prospect who visited the Sales Pavilion in Sun City West.

Now, some nearly 25 years hence, I truly do recognize the importance of “sorting” and the notion of elimination has become more and more a part of representing my commercial real estate clients effectively.

Of late, and driven by market conditions, there has emerged a new brand of bottom-feeding. It’s a concept I call “LOI Shopping” or, maybe “Networking the Deal” for better terms.

There is no doubt in my mind that this carp-like behavior among prospective tenants is a product of too much inventory and the desire of often marginal tenants to continue their vain attempts to shrink or even collapse the pricing envelope. Mind you, there is no orchestrated conspiracy here; just a glut of inventory and an every expanding population of weak tenants who think if they shake the tree hard enough fruit will fall to the ground.

Well, I am mad as hell and not going to take it anymore! I am implementing new measures to expose and terminate the pretenders…these fakes and would be tenant hypocrites who are representing themselves to my clients as so much more than they really are.

Although I am not ready to strap on a six shooter like Richard Boone did in “Have Gun Will Travel,” and ride into some western town on a mission of settling scores, I am ready for a serious revision of my qualifying language and the way I handle the “wanna be” candidate.

Since we are using some Latin, let me throw in some Greek too. The work “hypocrite” is derived from the Greek noun “υποκριτής” meaning “one who wears two masks.” It’s the source of the theater icon that depicts “comedy and tragedy.”

I am ready to pull back a few masks and find out what is behind them. I’m ready for a lot less comedy, especially since no one is laughing. Then too, I am not especially fond of the tragedy angle either.

Masks don’t work well in the empirical world of commercial real estate. Masks are only suitable for the stage, where the emotions of an audience are supposed to be toyed with.

I’m going back to what Del Webb taught me as a highly skilled Sales Counselor…the principle of Terminatio Simulatio Velociter or, in plain English, TERMINATE THE PRETENDER QUICKLY.

You see, guys like Del Webb understood clearly the principled approach to professional representation. There are only two types of real estate investors or, in the case of Del E. Webb, home buyers; the ones that will and the ones that won’t…the ones that can and the ones that can’t…the ones that do and the ones that don’t.

Those that will are those than can and those that can are those that do. No mask, no pretense.

To the Webb organization, the deliberately implemented sorting process begins at the first business encounter (give name, get name, use name) and continues as an integral component of all the follows, culminating in securing loyalty, examination, agreement and execution.

For the foreseeable future, the market is going to continue to hammer us all, owners, tenants and brokers. Too many properties, too little time and too few truly qualified tenants and investors.

I’m going back to the principle of Terminatio Simulatio Velociter or, in plain English, TERMINATE THE PRETENDER QUICKLY.

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Donald Teel is a Senior Associate with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial brokerage and property management firm. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

Retail shopping center owners, tenants and consumers are experiencing an unprecedented economic crunch. In short, all three are drifting in the same boat.

The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), publishes a “Shopping Habits Report” in the first quarter following the end of a calendar year.

As a retail leasing specialist, I digested the entire 2009 report, subtitled, How the Recession has Impacted Consumer Shopping Habits, and discovered that indeed center owners need to be on top of the consumer game.

The “2009 Shopping Habits Report” contains invaluable information about the future consumer trends that will impact center owners, whether large or small in size.

You can read the report for yourself and draw your own conclusions. However, three things stuck out to me in the report:

• 58% of consumers believe their income will stay the same or become significantly less in 2010
• Most consumers have and will continue to throttle their discretionary spending through 2010
• Strip centers and “Lifestyle Centers” attract the highest frequency of repeat traffic

For those of you who are my clients, I want to briefly focus on the strip center/lifestyle traffic models, which run in the 70-75% repeat traffic level. In 2010 and 2011, my Company, is seizing on the concept of “life-styling” centers that have a higher than normal tenant mix by creating “Center Websites” that serve as a marketing destination point for Broker and tenant inquiries and present a center personality to the viewers.
Continue reading “Consumer Shopping Profile = New Marketing Approaches”

Posted by Donald Teel, Arizona Commercial

As we plunge into 2010, commercial real estate market knowledge and a grasp of trends has become an even more essential component to successful investment. If you are a commercial broker/agent it is a requirement.

Grubb & Ellis has put together a top-notch report that analyzes the commercial markets throughout the United States, region-by-region, major-market-by-major-market and property type by property type.

Not only is the data supporting the analysis accurate and well researched, G&E’s online presentation is perhaps the best I have ever seen and is a definitive tool for assessing the regional and local markets for investors and brokerage firms.

In short, I am using the online tool which features a drag-and-drop approach, allowing the user to select a regional sector, a local market and a specific property type report for immediate download.

For example, here you will see G&E’s 2010 market report for the retail sector in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It’s a concise report that includes simplified graphics, it is easy to read and understand by any investor or broker and it lacks the typical long read format used in most commercial reports.

Another benefit of G&E’s approach is that users can also download the entire report or cherry pick the reports they want by region, state, property type, etc.

This report format model is an excellent approach, allowing those of us in the industry to locate the information we want in a precise and easy to follow manner.

Whether you are an investor or a commercial broker/agent the information has value and accessing it has never been easier. The limitation to the reports is seen in the fact that some markets are not included. However, use of the reports for trend analysis is but one obvious benefit.

Here is the link to the Grubb & Ellis online interactive 2010 report, including the national map of regions, states and major markets included in their coverage.

GO TO THE GRUBB & ELLIS ONLINE 2010 MARKET REPORT

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Donald Teel is Senior Associate with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial brokerage and property management firm. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

Like many who find themselves connected to the lifeblood of the commercial real estate market, I have been listening, researching and studying the myriad voices and have come to the conclusion that we are entering 2010 in a state of conflict.

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.

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Donald Teel is Senior Associate with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial brokerage and property management firm. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

If you are a commercial real estate specialist, education is paramount to ongoing success. The best commercial broker/agents I know are those with the CCIM designation. That is why I am pursuing the designation myself. Visit CCIM.com for more information.

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Donald Teel is Senior Associate with Arizona Commercial, an Arizona commercial brokerage and property management firm. Need more information? Please call 1-877-777-9100 or, if you prefer, you may email Donald Teel

The following video features Harry Dent discussing the current market recovery and warns about the ticking time bomb…aka, loan defaults, foreclosures and unemployment and their relationship.

Dent predicts that we will see a foreclosure impact in the first quarter of 2011, 48% will have negative equity positions (mortgage principal higher than the market value) and 50% of those will be “severely” over-levereraged. We have $17 trillion in financial sector debt…all of it based upon leveraged borrowing.

Dent predicts unemployment, mortgage defaults and the worst of the crisis will be early to mid 2011.

According to Dent, “We are going to see the economy worsen again…we are seeing a recovery but it is not sustainable…next year is not going to be the year of recovery that most economists are promising.”

WATCH THIS and post a comment.

Posted by Donald Teel – Arizona Commercial

Everyone, everywhere, is talking about the real estate market. Even people who do not know anything about the real estate market are talking about the real estate market.

Understandably, much of the discussion remains negative. After all, some estimates tells us that the net value of all commercial real estate in the United States has plummeted by as much as 30% since 2006. I would like to address the shiny side of this very ugly coin.

As we come to the end of 2009, how can we successfully invest in commercial real estate?

Many small to intermediate investors have been discovering that buying was the easy side of commercial real estate investment coin…the shiny side! Managing and turning properties in the volatile environment of 2009 has proved to be the tarnished side of our coin.

With respect to the fundamentals of investment, nothing has really changed. Yet, we all know much has changed and continues to change, especially with respect to the acquisition and cost of capital and sustained values. For the purpose of this article, I would like to place a market spin on what I think are the 10 most important principles for small commercial real estate investors to follow in 2010 and beyond.

Property Type. Who could have predicted that the multi-family sector would be where it is today based upon our assumptions ten years ago. We must remind ourselves that our assumptions are merely momentary conclusion based upon ever-evolving data and that the moving data is almost always something over which we have most likely, no control.

Type-casting isn’t just a Hollywood phenomenon, it’s imperative with every real estate transaction these days and in the case of multiple tenant revenues each lease will need to be sifted and ground down in order to determine its viability and value going forward. There are “leases” and there are “Leases” and there are “LEASES.” Nothing works well if the tenants don’t!

Inventory, absorption rates and occupancy rates and CAP rates are imperative to the investment equation. There is no negotiating these issues and they are deal breakers.

Still, it’s Location. It appears that the newest and perhaps safest strategy for small to medium investors is to get big by investing small all over. Just as mix of property types is essential to a sound investment strategy, so also is the principle of multiple locations based upon regional economic dissimilarities. Atlanta’s medical office values and projected demands will be different than those of Seattle and it would be ridiculous to compare Phoenix multi-family to say Manhattan multi-family.
Continue reading “How 2s for Investment Today”

Posted by Donald Teel – Arizona Commercial

In today’s commercial investment environment, property taxes can be lethal. Many investors are still paying property taxes that are reflective of the market run-up of 2000-2006 and not necessarily on the current valuations of their investments.

The questions are what can you do about inflated tax valuations, where do you turn and more importantly, how can investors challenge property tax values successfully?
Continue reading “Challenging Property Tax Values”

The notion of buyer’s market or seller’s market is a real phenomenon in any form of real estate investment.

Seldom can it be said that the market is both a ‘buyers’ and a ’seller’ market simultaneously. But this seems the case as we prepare to enter the second half of the 2009 commercial market.

Pinching down on Buyers is the absence of simplified capital lending, something necessary to their investment strategies. Sellers are experiencing what I call “refi shock” as banks tighten their rules for lending qualification in the wake of declining property values.

The conundrum is realized as buyers and sellers are forced to work in a market that favors both. The conundrum is one of uniquely creative transaction partnerships, where neither the buyer nor the seller can pop the cork on a Champaign bottle and light-up a victory cigar.

The Buyer vs. Seller Conundrum

This paradox of market realities or, clash of interests, is actually a moment of investment opportunities where banks can become the third party servants to buyers and sellers.
Continue reading “Buyer vs. Seller Conundrum”

Post Sponsored by Donald Teel

What is the current state of commercial property ownership, user potential, performance and values in the Prescott, Arizona area?

Where is the commercial real estate market headed in 2009 and beyond and what should property owners be doing to focus on property performance going forward?

At Arizona Commercial, we believe it is critically important for owners of commercial property within the tri-cites of Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley to consider executing a thorough “Property Performance Analysis” or PPA, based upon changes taking place in the general market but especially with respect to changes taking place in commercial mortgage lending.

The Myth of Immunity

The tri-cities commercial real estate market is not immune from the impact of the economy on property performance in larger metro markets such as Los Angeles and Phoenix.

The local commercial market is directly impacted by the strength of the general ecomomy, unemployment, housing and most importantly, lending.

The decline in residential property values, a slowdown in new construction, the reversal of commercial appreciation rates and unemployment are all contributing to changes in the performance of all segments of the commercial real estate market.

Listen to a podcast about this topic:

Property Performance Analysis

Arizona Commercial is currently engaged in conducting “Property Performance Analysis” (PPA) with commercial property owners as a FREE service designed to guage an owner’s financial objectives, the current financial performance of a property and the short and long term financing needs associated with the property.

Because we anticipate new challenges to commercial property performance as a direct result of the general conditions of the economy we think it imperative that owners assess their property performance situation sooner rather than later, and that they develop a sound financial plan going forward.”

Jim Pullaro – Broker, Arizona Commercial

Arizona Commercial’s PPA includes an assessment of and owners’s financial objectives measured against the quality of tenant mix, correct property use, lease performance, operating cost analysis, mortgage situation and estimations of user demand through 2010, with specific recommendations in each category.

Arizona Commercial’s PPA is like a property physical, in a sense. It measure the critical components related to the health of a commercial property and sets forth prognosis and treatment before problems begin.

Listen to a podcast about this topic:

Refinancing and Replacing

Commercial property owners and investors are keenly aware of the need for quality “R and R” or, refinancing and replacing. These are the two keys to perpetuating long term performance.

Lenders are currently tightening requirement for new commercial loans and refinancing. Qualification requirements are more stringent and under-performing properties or, select segments (property types) within the commercial real estate market are finding it more difficult to secure financing.

A PPA can signal issues fan owner may face before they become critical and assist with pre-planning for mortgage refinancing, property replacement or, both.

Commercial real estate investments require monitoring, adjustments and sometime immediate changes in order to keep them performing. A PPA can flag areas where an owner can and should make adjustments in order to keep performance healthy.

Until recently, many properties were performing as a result of a strong demand and easy financing. Therefore, many owners ignored or postponed the need for regular property analysis. In today’s economy there is no guarantee that a property will appreciate or perform without careful “hands-on” attention and management of the components of performance.

Listen to a podcast about this topic:

Email Donald Teel for a confidential Property Performance Analysis or, if you prefer, call him at 928.777.8100 and if you are out of state call toll free to 877.777.9100.