Pete Chrzaszcz's (commercialmasterminds) Blog

In looking over the "Affordable Housing Finance" magazine, I was struck by the very informative article By Jerry Ascierto. He points out “Acronyms like TARP, TALF, PPIP, and CAP litter today’s headlines, but exactly what these programs do-and how they do it-isn’t always easily digestible”. TARP a...

Christopher Lee, a real estate consultant with CEL & Associates, is a featured panelist at the 2009 NAA Education Conference & Exposition this week. The National Apartment Association (NAA) website features his white paper on the future of apartment living which I thought particularly pertinent f...

With “green” being the operative word these days, I couldn’t help but notice the interesting courses listed by the National Apartment Association (NAA) on their site. In addition to the NEW Credential for Green Property Management (CGPM), the site explains such programs as the Fair Housing and Be...

Recently, at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC), multifamily finance and operation fundamentals were discussed in depth. Chris Wood reported details in the Multifamily Executive on 6-16-09. In the opening session of the 2009 MultifamilyTrends Conference held in conjunction with the PCBC...

While reading over an April issue of the San Francisco Business Times, an article by J.K. Dineen and Blanca Torres caught my eye. The largest commercial real estate deal had just been executed by Menlo Park-based Garlock & Co. A shopping center, industrial park, you say? No, actually, a garage. T...

In reading Stewart Penn's recent blog in  Activerain.com on virtual real estate offices, I have to agree he makes a good point.  Penn, a Los Angeles Condo Specialist, after years of being with nationally-branded real estate offices, weighed the advantages. Realizing that not only was his time was...

John J. Heft, Vice President, New Day Underwriting Managers, LLC writes a compelling article on Environmental Liabilities in the December issue of Multi-Housing News (MHN) real estate magazine. Because of exclusions for mold in general liability policies, sizeable uncovered claims can wreck finan...

In my meetings and appointments over the last several weeks, I have heard more than once about commercial brokers who took a referral from a residential agent and did not pay a referral fee or only offered a token gesture of a couple hundred dollars. It has surprised me to learn that some commerc...

LoopNet recently conducted an online poll I wanted to share with you. The poll was entitled, When will Commercial Real Estate Bounce Back? On the first question, “When do you expect the number of completed commercial real estate transaction sales to begin to pick up vs. 2008?” 42% responded 2010,...

There are more good reasons to have pets in apartments than bad ones, writes Karen Aho, of MSN Real Estate, in the 5-5-09 issue of the National Apartment Association’s Industry Insider. She goes on to say that apartment owners should advertise their apartments as “pet friendly” instead of offerin...