CMBS for the Holidays

After gaining extensions on most of the GGP loans, exiting bankruptcy, and general perceived market improvement, GGP is now looking to ramp up refinancings. We've looked at positions on both ends of the capital stack as front and next pay bonds may shorten, and in the first case that we reviewed GGP passed on a loss to junior bond holders despite not losing any money themselves on Water Tower Place.

Bridger teamed up with New York Mortgage Trust and is offering mezzanine debt to CMBS borrowers - this would be a great business to be in right now.

Berkadia announced that it was going to lend out $200mm for CRE.

CMBS prices are a little overdone, but compared to this week 2008, they are reflecting risks much better. This happens to be the same week that I decided to start getting really long CMBS, in 2008, when we had high teen yields on front pay AAAs, but I'm a seller today.

I'm most thankful that electronic strip searches and groping by government employees has finally gotten a groundswell of opposition from the American public against the government not only stomping all over our rights as citizens, but treating us like criminals, and implementing costly procedures that do not appropriately address the problem. No, I'm not talking about the Fed, I'm talking about the TSA - but take your pick.

However, I also fully support women choosing to wear bikinis through the security lines and men wearing kilts, and I hope that more folks will be choosing these options to help entertain me as I travel in December. I'll be in planes more than all other vehicles combined next month and will be traveling 8 of the 31 days. If you could please click the donate button and ads I could fly private - help me help you. In a day when I can fly private for under $1k and get there faster and on my schedule, $200-$500 tickets and losing 2 - 4 hours of my time dealing with commercial airports is demonstratively less attractive.