For more on the financial crisis, check outGlobeSt.com's Webinar, "Wall Street In a Freefall—TheWinners and Losers."

CHARLOTTE, NC-Monday's merger of locally-based Wachovia Corp.with New York City-based Citigroup Inc. could go a lot moresmoothly in markets where both banks don't have large volumes ofredundancy, particularly in the Southeast, according to commercialreal estate observers. Wachovia is a dominant name on bank branchesand office buildings in many markets where Citigroup has only aminimal presence.

"I don't think there is a tremendous amount of overlap,"Nicholas Schorsch, chairman and CEO of American Realty CapitalTrust Inc., tells GlobeSt.com. Schorsch, whose firm divests excesssingle-tenant properties such as bank branches, adds that theexpanded network will put Citigroup in a better position to rivalthe nation's largest banks from a customer service standpoint.