Avatar's Blog
» End of Year Rush
The End-of-the-Year rush is already on for commercial lenders. It happens every year. Just as with retail sales, the number of loan requests increases before the holiday season. But it is not Christmas or Chanukah presents lenders are funding - it is investment or commercial real estate transactions that need to be completed before the end of the year.
Several factors are intensifying the 'rush' season this year. With the changing of the guard at the helm of the Fed, real estate buyers and owners are becoming more nervous about where the interest rates will be in 2006. As 2005 was a year of double digit growth in value again, many are looking to complete transactions that will lower taxes. While this is a common phenomenon every end-of-year, the more the potential tax hit, the more the flurry to protect investment capital before it is too late.
Finally, with the continuing doom and gloom reports in various reports about housing bubbles and other real estate crash predictions (most of which I think is bunk, by the way - but more about that later) we are even seeing a flurry of sales designed to 'get out before disaster strikes'. Frankly, there are excellent opportunities out there for the less faint of heart, as the timid sell off properties at lower costs simply to be rid of the property.
Tomorrow, I'll cover some of the doom and gloom predictors and tell you why most if not all of it bunk. Today, suffice it to say that the indicators are not pointing in the directtion of a slump anytime soon.
