Pete Chrzaszcz's (commercialmasterminds) Blog

Affordability is causing people to avoid large home purchases that were so popular during the housing boom. People are instead moving to apartments and condos of smaller scale. These housing trends have caused a change in design for furniture manufacturers. Persuaded by the data that more people ...

Creativity is leading the way with some trends to battle rising vacancies for commercial property owners. With more and more empty commercial spaces for rent littering the retail landscape, not to mention the fact that many companies, including Linens N' Things and Wilson's Leather, are closing t...

The general consensus is that there is light at the end of the tunnel for apartment owners. However, the road to stability should be paved with patience and basics. The economic health of the apartment industry is expected to return in Q2 2010 and apartment owners will be better positioned by wat...

Generation Y, also known as the Echo-Boomers, have been the Golden Egg worth sitting on for most apartment owners. A generation nearly the same size as the Baby Boomers is nearing a coming of age as the long-term supply of renters for apartment owners. Much talk exists about the timing of this wa...

Chairman Bernanke's Semiannual Monetary Policy report to the Congress on July 15, 2008 revealed a gloomier picture than once imagined.  As the housing slump continues to erode at homeowner's equity, the number and frequency of foreclosures in on the rise. Personal consumption has somehow managed ...

The ubiquitous Starbucks is even trimming the non performers!  At the 2005 International Conference of Shopping Centers (ICSC) convention in Las Vegas, the word on the street was that people would stop at Starbucks on their way to Bankruptcy court- because that is the culture we have created!  Re...

In his book "The World is Flat", Thomas Friedman explains how the world is a giant playing field being leveled, or made attainable by everyone because of the global reach of the internet. Bennett Voyles, a columnist for National Real Estate magazine, wrote "A Gusher of Arab Investment" where he e...

The East Bay Economic Development Alliance (EBEDA) report for June 2008; the highlights are: * East Bay unemployment increased, rising to 5.7 percent from 5.3 percent in April * Construction, finance and retail trade payrolls continued to post larger-than-average monthly and yearly decreases * Me...

In the latest issue of Apartment Finance Today, Robert White of Real Capital Analytics echoes my comments from previous blogs. In an article titled, "Roundtable remains bullish on Apartments", Mr. White states that the credit crunch has lasted longer than expected and that the recovery process in...

I received this "Quick Market Update" form Wells Fargo and thought it worth sharing qmu-13jun08.pdf . How quickly the focus changes in just one week. Last week the focus was Growth, this week Inflation.  The media is chasing it's own tail! In a nutshell, the last paragraph sums up the basics of a...