ULI Houston Tuesday August 17th 2010

ULI held a panel discussion Tuesday entitled "Real Estate Rx--expert diagnosis for properties in distress". The panel was moderated by Fred Caldwell with Caldwell Companies and included: Fred Balda with Hillwood Residential; Russell Ingrum, Exec. Vice President, Investment Properties, Institutional Group CBRE Capital Markets; Jeff Majewski, Exec. Managing Dir., Grubb & Ellis and Tim Williamson with Wells Fargo Bank. The panel mirrored most recent expert opinions in that the worst is behind us, 2010 is much better than 2009 and thank god we live in Texas. Tim Williamson offered some hope for developers and investors looking for project funding. To the surprise of many he announced that Wells Fargo is increasing it's commercial real estate exsposure and is agressively lending money.

David Hightower with Wolff Companies, Jim Casey with CBRE and Rusty Tamlyn with HFF

CCIM July 8th, Ted Jones Speaker

Stewart Titles Ted Jones was the speaker at last Thursdays CCIM Luncheon and once again put on an entertaining slide presentation. Ted feels that we will not be out of the recession till jobs turn around. Right now recessions are judged according to rising and falling GNP numbers. Ted feels that our economy would be best served if this was measured by the job growth rather than GDP. Trends point to 3 more years of rising unemployment. And just as others have commented  "it's a good thing we are in Texas".

Jim Cockrill with Coldwell Banker United, Realtors - Sugar Land, Beth Young with Grubb & Ellis and Gordon Fox with Fox Inspection Group

      Sassy Stanton with Stanton-Pinckard Realty, Michele Brown with United Western Bancorp, Suzanne Page-Pryde with Page-Pryde Properties and Melanie Fregoe Edmundson with Phase Engineering

ULI Luncheon June 22nd Galveston Recovery Panel

Panel members from L; Tom Murphy ULI Sr Fellow and former Mayor of Pittsburgh, Betty Massey Citizens Long Term Recovery Committee, Jim Noteware City of Houston Housing Dev. and Joe Jaworski newly elected Mayor of Galveston

ULI hosted a panel discussion on the Galveston Recovery Effort yesterday.  This effort has 42 projects planned and at this point has a long way to go but all say they are making significant progress. Of note was that Federal funding has not yet been sent and not expected till August.

Redevelopment of unused assets into a "Remarkable Place" is one goal. A lot of political bickering and an end to sluggishness should be ending with the recent elections. The Mayor and City Council are focused on forward and positive thinking. Per the Mayor the isolationist view of the past will be replaced with a more regional viewpoint.

Tiffany Soltis with Wilson Cribbs and Goren and Sue Jacobson with Stewart Title

Abe Goren with Wilson Cribbs and Goren, Phil Lewis with Eller Lewis & Loep Realty Advisors, Jerry Goldstein with Marcus and Millichap and Gary Hough with Q10 Kinghorn, Driver, Hough & Co

Biznow Houston Capital Markets - June 22, 2010

Biznow held a Capital Markets panel discussion yesterday and had a pretty good crowd of CRE executives. First up was the lender and banking perspective followed by executives from some local real estate firms. Larry Heard from Transwestern once again seemed to be able to convey the sentiment of many that Houston should be able to recover nicely but when is still the issue. With the BP disaster it looks as though chances of Houston recovering before the rest of the country are now slim. He feels foreclosures will extend through 2013, cap rates are going down, pointing to a DC office property that went at a 5 cap and he likes Industrial prospects in Houston.

Mark Kidd with M Kidd Properties and Fran Youngstrom with Marvin F. Poer & Co

Carried Interest Update, as of June 15th

Dear ICSC Member,




On Monday, June 14, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed for cloture, the final parliamentary step to move H.R. 4213, which includes the carried interest tax increase on real estate partnerships to pay for a $140 billion temporary extension of tax credits and benefits. Reports suggest, however, that Senator Reid is still short of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster on this bill.



ICSC anticipates an updated version of the legislation to be released later this week as negotiations on several aspects of the bill, including carried interest, continue. Senator John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to offer an alternative that does not include the carried interest tax increase and would slash spending and deficits by $55 billion while still extending tax breaks and benefit payments.



Last week, ICSC President and CEO Mike Kercheval and various ICSC members came to Washington, DC to visit with several key Senate offices. While we received support from most offices, it was mixed with a lack of commitment to make necessary changes to this problematic tax increase on commercial real estate. ICSC's efforts to dampen the impact of this tax hike continue.



At this point, we do not believe that Senate leadership is willing to further consider the concerns of the commercial real estate community with the carried interest provision, and we are asking ICSC members to contact their Senators to request a "NO" vote on cloture and "NO" on H.R. 4213 until the carried interest issues for real estate are reconsidered.



To contact your Senators, please call 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Senators' offices. Click here to use the ICSC phone script as a resource for those calls. You can also click here to send an email if you are more comfortable with that option. The important thing is that Senate offices hear from you.



Thank you for your continued efforts on this issue.



Sincerely,



On behalf of Betsy Laird

Senior Vice President

Office of Global Public Policy ICSC







Forwarded by:



Bradley H. Bailey



Associate Vice President, Investment



Director, National Retail Group



Marcus & Millichap REIS















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