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Daily News for Commercial Real Estate & Business – July 6, 2011

Here are the news articles you might find interesting today for commercial real estate and business:

To view the July 2011 Commercial Scotsman Guide, click here.

Owner/User Building Sold Nick Miner, CCIM, Dave Verwer, CCIM and Homer Savard of Commercial Properties, Inc exclusively represented the buyer to acquire this property. View article…

Greenfield-University Plaza sells for $1.4 million Greenfield-University Plaza was sold to DP 89 LLC, a Phoenix company, for $1.4 million in a short sale. The plaza is a 20,600-square-foot shopping center at 4355 E. University Drive in Mesa. It currently is 60 percent occupied with tenants that include Subway…View article…

First Market Properties enters Phoenix with Maryvale purchase First Market Properties LLC, a New York real estate investment firm, has acquired Pine Ridge Apartments as its first property in the Southwest. FMP first acquired the mortgage for the property, a 30-unit complex at 2627 N. 45th Ave. in the Maryvale section of Phoenix, at a 50 percent discount. View article…

EXL Completes Share Offering During the first quarter 2011 Excel Trust had signed a contract to purchase The Promenade, a retail shopping center located in Scottsdale, Arizona spanning 433,000 square feet for approximately $110 million. The net proceeds generated from the offering will be used to fund a portion of the purchase price of The Promenade, to repay the outstanding debts under its unsecured revolving credit facility, for future acquisitions and for other general corporate purposes. View article…

Shadow Inventory and REOs Loom Over National Recovery Several financial sectors suggest economic stabilization and growth, but the nation’s housing market continues to dampen overall conditions, according to the credit bureau Equifax. Equifax, based in Atlanta, has released the results of a study it conducted during the month of May analyzing national credit trends. View article…

Arby’s now owned by Roark Capital Roark Capital Group on Tuesday closed its $430 million acquisition of Atlanta-based Arby’s Restaurant Group Inc. from Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc. Arby’s is the second largest quick-service sandwich chain in the United States with more than 3,600 restaurants. It generated $265.3 million in revenue in 2010 — a 5 percent increase over 2009. View article…

Phoenix ranked seventh most sustainable metro area The Phoenix metro area was ranked in the top 10 sustainable U.S. metro areas by Site Selection magazine in its “Green Guide 2011” this month. Ranked seventh overall, Phoenix was among the metro areas selected based on the size of its green industry, projects certified by the U.S. Green Building Council…View article…

Commercial Mortgages Held By Life Insurance Companies Weather the Storm Losses on commercial real estate loans held by the nation’s life insurance companies grew at a slower rate than expected in 2010, surprising many analysts. The better-than-expected performance was due to more conservative underwriting at the peak of the market and sound management of loan losses during the depths of the Great Recession, according to Fitch Ratings. Insurers lost $1.45 billion on their commercial mortgage loans in 2010, compared with losses of $1.51 billion in 2009. That performance was substantially better than a leading forecast by Fitch, which had expected losses of up to $3 billion. View article…

U.S. Apt Market Revenues Jump 2.5% in Q2 The U.S. apartment sector turned in a near-record revenue growth performance in the second quarter of 2011, according to the preliminary results from MPF Research’s 2nd quarter 2011 survey of more than 6 million apartment units across the country. Occupancy climbed 0.8 percentage points during the past three months, and effective rents jumped 1.7%, taking the total revenue lift for the quarter to 2.5%. View article…

Feel free to contact me regarding any of these stories, the current market, distressed commercial real estate opportunities or your property.