Coming down from the summit
I attended Bisnow's Second Annual Real Estate Summit at the InterContinental Hotel this morning. It was a packed house, with a lot of familiar faces and some great speakers, including Steve Fifield, Mike Reschke, Gerry Nudo and the keynote speaker, Neil Bluhm. (Hearing Bluhm speak is a big deal to many of the real estate cognoscenti, because he does not appear as frequently on the scene as a Sam Zell or a Donald Trump, even though he is also a billionaire and every bit as savvy.) What did I learn that I can pass on to you, along with my thoughts? (I am intentionally not attributing comments to any speaker here.) Several panelists don't see any turnaround here in commercial real estate until at least 2013. Lenders are dying to replaced paid off capital with new loans. I'm not seeing as much of that. But I am seeing life that didn't exist before either. I guess lenders and borrowers have different perspectives too. If a bank is asking for more money or capital, it is