Sam Chandan
By Sam Chandan | August 26, 2010 | 10:28 am
The Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) fell by 4 percent in June, marking the first decline in same-property sales prices since March and one of the sharpest one-month percentage drops since the CPPI's inception. Ceding gains from April and May, the index has fallen by just over 0.9 percent during the first half of 2010, from an index value of 113.6 in December 2009 to 112.5 in June. While 4.2 percent above its recent... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | July 22, 2010 | 8:17 am
Financial reform has passed its final hurdle to becoming law. Last week's Senate vote on the bill's conference report and the pending signature of the president now usher in far-reaching, though little understood, changes to the nation's financial system. Details of the law aside, its passage heralds a reversal of long-term deregulation and a medium-term outlook characterized by more aggressive enforcement.... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | July 15, 2010 | 11:13 am
The National Governors Association convened its 102nd annual meeting in Boston over the weekend. This year's formal agenda focused on issues relating to health care reform, streamlining state government and the challenges presented by rapid growth in the federal debt burden. Behind the scenes and off the record, the nation's governors are undoubtedly also focused on addressing persistent gaps in state and local budgets and on engaging the federal government for additional stimulus... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | June 16, 2010 | 6:07 pm
In June 9 testimony before the House Budget Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told legislators that the federal government must chart a course to sustainable deficits. This holds even if the government does not cut back on its simulative expenditures and lending activities in the near... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | May 13, 2010 | 12:13 pm
The dramatic and often tragic events unfolding in Greece have highlighted that the current debt crisis is not isolated to the world's private borrowers. In Europe and in the United States, governments at all levels are having to grapple with the consequences of long-standing fiscal mismanagement just as households and commercial real estate investors are adjusting their own balance... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | April 15, 2010 | 10:15 am
Residential mortgage rates are inching up. Freddie Mac reported on Thursday that rates for 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages had climbed to an eight-month high of 5.21 percent, up from 5.08 percent a week earlier and a low of 4.71 percent last December. Because conditions in the housing market remain fragile, the rise in borrowing costs is of serious concern for policy makers and for a range of market participants, who have come to expect... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | April 7, 2010 | 5:00 pm
The economic tea leaves are prompting a new level of optimism among policy makers and market observers. Speaking on Sunday, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan said, "There is a momentum building up which is really just beginning, and it's got a way to go." He suggested that the likelihood of the economy slipping back into recession has abated over the past two months.... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | March 25, 2010 | 10:39 am
IN THE SHADOWS of the divisive House debate on health care reform, members of the Senate have continued their work on a range of proposals addressing the need for reform in the financial system. Differences of opinion, sometimes partisan and sometimes reasoned, have precluded consensus on how best to proceed. Failing to reach a compromise proposal, the Senate Banking Committee's chairman, Chris Dodd, unveiled his own legislative proposal earlier this... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | March 17, 2010 | 4:41 pm
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao warned on Sunday of the potential for a double dip in the global economy. Given Mr. Wen's position at the helm of the world's fastest-growing economy, his concerns about the course of the recovery warrant serious attention. In his once-yearly press conference-which follows the adjournment of the National People's Congress-the premier was stalwart in his defense of China's exchange-rate policy.... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | March 11, 2010 | 8:13 am
The debt woes of the Euro Zone economies and the need for political, fiscal and monetary policy compromises to keep the economic union intact have underlined the disparate recoveries of the world's developed and emerging economies. The advanced economies, dominated by the United States, Western Europe and Japan, are projected to grow at a slow but sustained pace over the next year. Developing Asia, including China and India, is projected to lead global growth.... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | March 4, 2010 | 5:04 pm
The administration's plan for overhauling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was widely anticipated as part of or alongside this February's budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget for fiscal year 2011 was presented on schedule, but it did not include a formal road map for the government-sponsored enterprises. It now appears that uncertainties relating to the long-term role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, operating under the conservatorship authority of the Federal... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | February 25, 2010 | 2:50 pm
Constrained by sharply lower revenues from income, property, and sales taxes, state and local governments across the country are facing another round of spending cuts. The adjustment in revenue has been most difficult in states where the housing boom and resulting increases in property and sales taxes swelled state and local coffers leading up the recession.... MORE >
By Sam Chandan | February 16, 2010 | 6:13 pm
The Congressional Oversight Panel, established in 2008 as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, turned its attention to conditions in the commercial real estate market with the release of its February oversight report last week. Titled "Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability," the report addresses the potential for further deterioration in commercial mortgage performance to spill over into the broader economy, thereby curtailing... MORE >
By | February 11, 2010 | 12:57 pm
The Japs capture Rockefeller Center." So wrote William Buckley, the conservative commentator who died two years ago this month, in his December 1989 column for The National Review. Buckley's story followed news in late October 1989 that the Rockefeller Group, at that time still the owner of the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, would sell a 51 percent interest in the iconic asset to Mitsubishi Estate Company of... MORE >
By | February 3, 2010 | 1:02 pm
In his State of the Union last week, President Obama was unequivocal in pledging to focus on job creation over the next year. To this end, he adjured Congress to produce another economic stimulus-under the moniker of a jobs bill-that will foster an expansion of private... MORE >
