released earlier this week by a Congressional Oversight Panelestablished to monitor TARP will be a welcome data source as the RealEstate Roundtable continues its multi-action legislative push on theHill and with the Administration, according to CEO Jeff DeBoer.

"The report does an excellent job of connecting the dots between theneed for strong real estate markets, a functioning banking system atthe local level and what all that means to communities and tax bases," he tells GlobeSt.com.

"We have a serious problem on our hands that stems from the fact there is no meaningful job growth," Deboer adds. "For real estate, thattranslates into declines in NOI--be it leased real estate orbuildings owned by institutional investors or by small businesses.

"The lack of jobs, and lack of NOI is weakening the assets that arethe collateral against which banks make loans," he continues.

The report also points out the need for substantial amounts of equitythat need to be invested in real estate. "We've been sayingthis is not just a credit crisis but also, in some ways, an equitycrisis," Deboer relates. "There needs to be a significant amount of equity put into realestate."

Of course these observations, as well as the technical data in thereport, are known to the commercial real estate community, DeBoersays. "But it articulates this information in a new and fresh way and will be very helpfulserving as a verifying point for policy makers--especiallypolicymakers who might be a little unsure in this area, because it isso complicated."

NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Erika Morphy

Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.