The four large trusses in the great are complete and the rustic look came out great.

There are two bedrooms a media room and an excerise room on the second floor.    I faux painted all the trim there, the crown, baseboard, window and door trim, also 7 doors.  The doors are an extra foot taller than your normal door.  Its painted like the ceiling in the great room.

trim 

doors

Published: Monday, July 19, 2010, 4:02 PM
Kenneth Kesner, The Huntsville Times (AL.com)
RaytheonRaytheon announced today it will build a 70,000-square-foot facility on Redstone Arsenal for integration and production of its Standard Missile-3 and SM-6, creating about 300 new jobs.
HUNTSVILLE, AL -- Raytheon's announcement this morning that it will locate a 70,000-square-foot missile production facility on Redstone Arsenal makes this "a great day for Huntsville," said Mayor Tommy Battle, adding that the plant should also benefit other Tennessee Valley communities.
Ground is to be broken later this year for the plant, to be located at the site of the former Morton Thiokol facility on the south end of the Arsenal. It will eventually employ about 300 people and is to be built in two phases, each tied to production contracts for the company's Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6.
Share The Huntsville area is well known for what Battle called "laptop" work: software development, research, engineering and the like. The Raytheon plant will bring more highly-trained manufacturing positions.
"These 300 jobs are manufacturing/production type jobs," he said. "It helps us with a different skill set that we are always going after."
Huntsville is becoming a sort of "Center of Excellence" for missile production and refurbishment or "reset" of equipment brought in from the field and prepared for deployment elsewhere, Battle said. Local companies are already involved in this work, particularly with the major upgrade of Apache helicopters and other Army gear coming from Iraq and destined for elsewhere.
"There were a number of states that were under consideration by Raytheon for this facility," said Brian Hilson, president of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce. "We feel very fortunate to get it, and especially proud that it's coming here at a time when our economy is hurting and any community needs 300 jobs. But these are 300 outstanding jobs from both the manufacturing and design and engineering standpoints.
"In short, this is a world-class facility at what we think is a world-class community and we're very proud to get it."
Hiring is expected to begin sometime next year. Alabama Industrial Development Training will be providing recruitment screening and pre-employment training, Hilson said.
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Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 5:30 AM
Michael Tomberlin -- The Birmingham News (AL.com)
Birmingham's office and industrial buildings finished the second quarter with more space being leased than vacated, a positive sign that an economic recovery could be hitting home in commercial real estate.
However, sublease space remained a drag on the metro area's industrial and office space in the second quarter, slowing the recovery in the two important real estate sectors.
Still, industry observers are taking note of the 20,580 square feet net gain in office occupancy and 24,970 square feet net gain in industrial occupancy for the quarter as a significant sign.
"For the first time, there was some positive absorption," said Bill Pradat, president at EGS. "While it wasn't a large amount of square footage, it was positive."
Despite filling some vacancies in both during the quarter those numbers hide the large amount of space that existing tenants are trying to lease to someone else, often at deep discounts.
Birmingham ended the quarter with an occupancy rate of 90.3 percent overall in the office market and 80.5 percent in the industrial market, however, neither number includes sublease space which is technically leased but is on the market by the tenants.
In the industrial market, for instance, another 60,000 square feet of sublease space during the quarter brought the total industrial sublease space in Birmingham to 675,032 and would drop the overall occupancy to 75.8 percent if it was included. When you add in the sublease space on the office side, the occupancy drops from 90.3 percent to just over 85 percent.
The good news:
But the quarter did bring some good news with several significant leases, including:
>> TSF Sportswear LLC leased 66,000 square feet in Oxmoor South Industrial Park.
>> Triton Stone leased 50,000 square feet in the Continental Gin building.
>> Magma Granite Corp. leased 21,400 square feet at 1301 First Ave. South.
>> Dynamic Tower Services leased 6,975 square feet in Cahaba Valley Business Park.
>> SNL Distribution Services leased 5,000 square feet in the Birmingham Food Terminal.
>> Synovus Mortgage leased 31,874 square feet in Lakeshore Park Plaza.
>> Capital Strategies Group leased 9,729 square feet in the Shades Cahaba office building.
>> HP Hotels Management leased 5,032 square feet in Chase Corporate Center.
>> Fuston, Petway & French leased 4,080 square feet in the Luckie Building.
The quarter also saw some property sales, include Nextran's $1.16 million purchase of a 31,000-square-foot building at 3101 Messer-Airport Highway, Infinity Property & Casualty Corp.'s $16.1 million purchase of the 111,600-square-foot former Vesta Insurance building and NuTech Medical's $3.7 million purchase of the 28,000-square-foot McCrory Building Co. building.
In the office market, second quarter occupancy rates ran as high as 94.1 percent in the Midtown area that includes Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills to a low of 79.4 percent in the Hoover/Riverchase area. Birmingham office rental rates for top tier space averaged $21.18 per square foot per year, with Midtown fetching the highest average of $22.12 per square foot per year and Hoover Riverchase the lowest at $18.90 per square foot per year.
On the industrial side, the eastern part of the market that includes the Pinson, Roebuck, Trussville, Leeds and Moody areas had the highest occupancy rate of 86.6 percent while the southwestern part of the market with areas such as Hueytown, Bessemer and McCalla had the lowest with 64.3 percent.
Pradat said while brokers always hope for a large headquarters or some other sizable user to come in and take large chunks of the empty space, the reality is that in the current economy, small and incremental deals will likely be the norm in the near future.
"No wow! deal has popped up in recent memory," he said.
Pradat said that this point in 2010 is a marked improvement over where things were a year ago. "There is certainly improved activity," Pradat said. "It's better than this time last year."
Join the conversation by clicking to comment or e-mail Tomberlin at mtomberlin@bhamnews.com.
© 2010 al.com. All rights reserved.
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By NICK TIMIRAOS, Wall Street Journal
Apartment vacancies fell slightly during the second quarter, the first drop in three years, as improving consumer confidence reversed the trend of renters doubling up or moving in with family during the recession.
The improvement allowed landlords to modestly raise rents, though big increases aren't likely until U.S. job growth accelerates.
The national apartment vacancy rate stood at 7.8% at the end of June, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm. That was down from the 8% vacancy rate during the first quarter, which was the highest vacancy rate in 30 years. At the end of the second quarter a year ago, the vacancy rate was 7.7%.
The Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complexes, seen in front of the Empire State Building last October in New York City. Delivery of new apartments nationwide is expected to slow in 2010 and 2011.
Rents gained by 0.7% during the seasonally strong April-to-June period, the biggest quarterly gain in two years, led by improvements in Long Island, N.Y.; San Jose, Calif.; Boston and Seattle. Those are markets where landlords slashed rents last year as job losses prompted more renters to downsize. Not surprisingly, Washington, D.C., which has one of the strongest job markets in the nation, posted the largest 12-month rent gain of 3.1%.
In New York City, rents rose 1.4% during the second quarter even as the vacancy rate increased 0.2 percentage points, making it one of just 15 markets to see an increase in vacancies. (A separate report, scheduled to be released Thursday on the Manhattan market only, found that vacancies in Manhattan declined.)
The numbers mean that the renters' market of the past two years, where landlords showered perks such as two or three months of free rent to entice tenants, is drawing to a close. The balance of power hasn't swung "completely back to owners right now," says Hessam Nadji, managing director at real-estate firm Marcus & Millichap. "But we're well under way to see that balance shift back."
Rents fell in just 10 of the 82 markets tracked by Reis, with the biggest declines coming in Orlando, Fla., and Baltimore. Markets with a big oversupply of vacant and foreclosed entry-level homes are expected to remain weak. Phoenix and Las Vegas posted the largest year-over-year rent declines, of 2.3% and 2.9%, respectively.
Vacancies are heavily dependent on job growth because many would-be renters typically double up or move in with family members during a downturn. The apartment sector's improvement comes as more renters who have jobs feel comfortable upgrading their living situation. "People today are more confident to say, 'I can go live in my own space and I don't have to keep hunkering down,"' says Victor Calanog, director of research for Reis.
But landlords won't be able to boost rents significantly until the job market recovers. "Until we have the real increase in jobs, we won't have the pricing power," says Jeffrey Friedman, chief executive of Associated Estates Realty Corp., which owns and operates 12,000 units in the eastern U.S.
Still, the apartment sector could benefit from some other trends. First, mortgage lending standards are much tighter today than at any point in the past decade, which should keep more renters from leaving to buy homes. That is a big change from the last downturn, when "people who couldn't qualify to rent were qualifying to buy homes," says Alexander Goldfarb, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP.
Second, the lack of financing for new apartment construction over the past two years has constrained the pipeline of new supply that should hit the market in the next two years. The apartment sector, which added between 100,000 and 150,000 units annually over the past decade, is on pace to deliver just 60,000 units in 2011 and 2012, according to Marcus & Millichap.
That lack of new supply is "allowing the apartment sector to do a lot better, faster than anyone in the industry anticipated," says Mr. Goldfarb.
It is unclear how long the sector will benefit from those supply constraints. The relatively healthy outlook for apartments has attracted considerable capital but apartment sales haven't picked up.
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
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To Fix Sour Property Deals, Lenders 'Extend and Pretend'
Some banks have a special technique for dealing with business borrowers who can't repay loans coming due: Give them more time, hoping things improve and they can repay later. Banks call it a wise strategy. Skeptics call it "extend and pretend."
A Portland, Ore., bank has extended the original 2007 loans taken out to purchase this lot. The planned residential community remains undeveloped.
Banks are applying it, in particular, to commercial real-estate lending, where, during the boom, optimistic borrowers got in over their heads to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
A big push by banks in recent months to modify such loans—by stretching out maturities or allowing below-market interest rates—has slowed a spike in defaults. It also has helped preserve banks' capital, by keeping some dicey loans classified as "performing" and thus minimizing the amount of cash banks must set aside in reserves for future losses.
Restructurings of nonresidential loans stood at $23.9 billion at the end of the first quarter, more than three times the level a year earlier and seven times the level two years earlier. While not all were for commercial real estate, the total makes clear that large numbers of commercial-property borrowers got some leeway.
But the practice is creating uncertainties about the health of both the commercial-property market and some banks. The concern is that rampant modification of souring loans masks the true scope of the commercial property market weakness, as well as the damage ultimately in store for bank balance sheets.
In Atlanta, Georgian Bank lent $13.5 million to a company in late 2007, some of it to buy land for a 53-story luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel and condo development. The loan came due in November 2008, but the bank extended its maturity date by a year. The bank extended it again to May 2010, with an option for a further extension to November 2010, according to court documents.
Georgia's banking regulator shut down the bank last September. A subsequent U.S. regulatory review cited "lax" loan underwriting and "an aggressive growth strategy…that coincided with declining economic conditions in the Atlanta metropolitan area." Some of Georgian Bank's assets were assumed by First Citizens Bank and Trust Co. of Columbia, S.C., which began foreclosure proceedings on the still-unbuilt luxury development. The borrowers contested the move, and settlement talks are in progress.
Also in Atlanta, Bank of America Corp. has extended a loan twice for a high-end shopping and residential project. Three years after a developer launched the Streets of Buckhead project as a European-style shopping district, all there is to show for it is a covey of silent cranes and a fence. The developer, Ben Carter, says he is in final negotiations for an investor to come in and inject $200 million into the languishing development.
Regulators helped spur banks' recent approach to commercial real estate by crafting new guidelines last October. They gave banks a variety of ways to restructure loans. And they allowed banks to record loans still operating under the original terms as "performing" even if the value of the underlying property had fallen below the loan amount—which is an ominous sign for ultimate repayment. Although regulators say banks shouldn't take the guidelines as a signal to cut borrowers more slack, it appears some did.
Banks hold some $176 billion of souring commercial-real-estate loans, according to an estimate by research firm Foresight Analytics. About two-thirds of bank commercial real-estate loans maturing between now and 2014 are underwater, meaning the property is worth less than the loan on it, Foresight data show. U.S. commercial-real-estate values remain 42% below their October 2007 peak and only slightly above the low they hit in October 2009, according to Moody's Investors Service.
In the first quarter, 9.1% of commercial-property loans held by banks were delinquent, compared with 7% a year earlier and just 1.5% in the first quarter of 2007, according to Foresight.
Holding off on foreclosing is often good business, says Mark Tenhundfeld, senior vice president at the American Bankers Association. "It can be better for a bank to extend a loan and increase the chance that the bank will be repaid in full rather than call the loan due now and dump more property on an already-depressed market," he says.
But continuing to extend loans and otherwise modify them, rather than foreclosing, amounts to a bet that the economy will rebound enough to enable clients to find new demand for the plethora of offices, hotels, condos and other property on which they borrowed. If it doesn't work out this way, the banks will end up having to write off the loans anyway.
At that point, if they haven't been setting aside sufficient cash all along for potential losses on such loans, the banks will face a hit to their earnings.
Banks' reluctance to bite the bullet on some deteriorating commercial real estate can have economic repercussions. The readiness to stretch out loans puts a floor under commercial real estate and keeps it from hitting bottom, which may be a precondition for a robust revival.
More broadly, the failure to get the loans off banks' books tends to deter new lending to others. It's a pattern somewhat reminiscent, although on a lesser scale, of the way Japanese banks' failure to write off souring loans in the 1990s contributed to years of stagnation.
It's a Catch-22 for banks. As long as some of their capital is tied up in real-estate loans that are struggling—and as the banks see a pipeline of still-more sour real-estate debt that will mature soon—their lending is likely to remain constricted. But to wipe the slate clean by writing off many more loans would mean an even bigger hit to their capital.
"It does not take much of a write-down to wipe out capital," says Christopher Marinac, managing principal at FIG Partners LLC, a bank research and investment firm.
Federal bank regulators tackled the issues in October with a 33-page set of guidelines. Bank regulators have said they were concerned about commercial-property losses and debts coming due on commercial property.
Another problem they sought to resolve was that banks and their examiners weren't always on the same page. In some cases banks weren't recognizing loan problems, while in other cases, tough bank examiners were forcing banks to downgrade loans the bankers believed were still good.
The guidance was intended "to promote both prudent commercial real-estate loan workouts by banks and balanced and consistent reviews of these loans by the supervisory agencies," said Elizabeth Duke, a Federal Reserve governor, in a March speech. The guidelines came from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which includes the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Comptroller of the Currency.
Although one goal was greater consistency in the treatment of commercial real-estate loans, in practice, the guidelines appear to have fed confusion in the markets about how banks are dealing with commercial real-estate debt. "I just don't believe that the standard is being applied consistently across the industry," says Edward Wehmer, chief executive of Wintrust Financial Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill.
In a May conference call with 1,400 bank executives, regulators sought to clear up confusion. "We don't want banks to pretend and extend," Sabeth Siddique, Federal Reserve assistant director of credit risk, said on the call. "We did hear from investors and some bankers interpreting this guidance as a form of forbearance, and let me assure you it's not."
Restructurings increased at some banks, like BB&T Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C. Its total of one type of restructured commercial loan hit $969 million in recent months, the bank reported in April. That was a huge jump from six months earlier, when the figure was just $68 million.
The increase was "basically a function of implementing the new regulatory guidance," the bank's finance chief, Daryl Bible, told investors in May. "We are working with our customers trying to keep them in the loans."
BB&T's report showed a significant number of cases where it was extending loan maturities and allowing interest rates not widely available in the market for loans of similar risk.
Banks don't have to disclose how terms on their loans have changed, making it hard to know whether they are setting aside enough cash for possible losses.
In a large proportion of cases, modifying the terms of loans ultimately isn't enough to save them. At the end of the first quarter, 44.5% of debt restructurings were 30 days or more delinquent or weren't accruing interest, up from 28% the first quarter of 2008.
A case in Portland, Ore., shows how banks can keep treating a commercial loan as current, despite the difficulties of the underlying project.
A client called Touchmark Living Centers Inc. in 2007 borrowed $15.9 million, in two loans, to buy land for a development. The borrower planned to retire the loans at the end of the year by obtaining construction financing to build the Touchmark Heights community for empty-nesters.
Because the raw land produced no income, the lender, Umpqua Bank, had provided "interest reserves" with which the developer could cover interest payments while obtaining permits and preparing to build. The bank extended Touchmark a $350,000 interest reserve—in effect increasing what Touchmark owed by that amount.
In December 2007, the U.S. economy slipped into recession. When the loans came due that month, Touchmark didn't pay them off. Umpqua extended the maturity to May 31, 2008.
The bank also added $600,000 to the interest reserves. Though supplying interest reserves is common at the outset of a loan, when an unbuilt project can't produce any income with which to pay debt service, replenishing interest reserves is frowned on by regulators.
Asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the bank said, "Umpqua and Touchmark had determined that the project was still viable but not yet ready for development." Touchmark said it didn't pursue construction financing at that time because "it was not prudent to proceed with developing the property until the economy improves," as a spokeswoman put it.
In 2008 the bank extended the loans again, to April 2009. During this time, Touchmark began paying interest on the loans out of its own pocket.
Then in May 2009, Umpqua restructured the loans, lumping what was owed into one $15 million loan that required regular payments on both interest and principal. Touchmark paid down the principal a little and Umpqua set a new maturity date—May 5, 2012.
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Mortgage Risk IT Leaves No Loan UnturnedAccess thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More Meanwhile, the value of the land Touchmark had borrowed to purchase has been eroding. The bank says it was worth $23.5 million by the most recent independent appraisal, but that was in 2008. The county assessment and taxation department pegged the land's value at about $20 million at the start of 2009. An appraiser for the department estimates raw-land values in the area fell by another 25% to 30% last year,
Touchmark executives declined to estimate the land's value. They said the property has retained "significant" value, partly because of its location, with a view of 11,240-foot Mount Hood.
Umpqua Bank says the loan is accruing interest, and it expects the loan to be repaid.
Write to Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com and Lingling Wei at lingling.wei@dowjones.com
www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

Alabama's RealtyBid.com eyes commercial real estate
Published: Wednesday, July 07, 2010, 10:03 AM Updated: Wednesday, July 07, 2010, 10:07 AM
Jerry Underwood -- The Birmingham News (AL.com)
Alabama-based RealtyBid.com, which sells foreclosed homes on its online auction site, is branching into commercial real estate.
The Rainbow City firm said today it has teamed with the special assets group of Marcus & Millichap to develop CommercialBid.com, a bidding site for commercial real estate assets. The Web was launched on July 1 with listed properties valued at more than $60 million.
Online bidding will take place on the site on Aug. 3-5.
"RealtyBid has been watching the commercial market for the past two years and evaluating the timing of rolling out a commercial auction strategy," CEO Tony Isbell said in a statement. "Our new relationship with (Marcus & Millichap) provided the perfect entree into this market at a time when we can be most beneficial to buyers and sellers."
RealtyBid.com says it has sold more than 25,000 properties online since 2001.
Marcus & Millichap is a national commercial real estate brokerage firm.
www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

Its hard to complain about the rain here in Florida.  We seem to be in a perpetual drought so when the rainy season comes we need as much as we can get.   However its no fun missing work and the opportunity to make money.  The big new construction home I am working in was a zoo today with all the trades trying to work inside and out of the rain.  I didn't get anything done at all.  Hopefully tomorrow it will be better.  I dont' think too many people will be there on the Holiday weekend.   I am planing on working Sat but taking Sun off and then hit it again on Mon.

OPINION JUNE 30, 2010
Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth.
By ALLAN H. MELTZER
The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.
But they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed. And so the U.S. was odd-man out at the G-20 meeting over the weekend, continuing to call for more government spending in the face of European resistance.
The contrast with President Reagan's antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.
Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
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Martin Kozlowski
Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems. One piece financed temporary tax cuts. This was a mistake, and ignores the role of expectations in the economy. Economic theory predicts that temporary tax cuts have little effect on spending. Unless tax cuts are expected to last, consumers save the proceeds and pay down debt. Experience with past temporary tax reductions, as in the Carter and first Bush presidencies, confirms this outcome.
Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits. Transferring a deficit from the state to the federal government changes very little. Some teachers and police got an additional year of employment, but their gain is temporary. Any benefits to them must be balanced against the negative effect of the increased public debt and the temporary nature of the transfer.
The Obama economic team ignored past history. The two most successful fiscal stimulus programs since World War II—under Kennedy-Johnson and Reagan—took the form of permanent reductions in corporate and marginal tax rates. Economist Arthur Okun, who had a major role in developing the Kennedy-Johnson program, later analyzed the effect of individual items. He concluded that corporate tax reduction was most effective.
Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back. Remember the oft-repeated claim that the spending would go for "shovel ready" projects? That didn't happen, though spending will flow more rapidly now in an effort to lower unemployment and claim economic success during the fall election campaign.
In his January 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama recognized that the United States must increase exports. He was right, but he has done little to help, either by encouraging investment to increase productivity, or by supporting trade agreements, despite his promise to the Koreans that he repeated in Toronto. Export earnings are the only way to service our massive foreign borrowing. This should be a high priority. Isn't anyone in the government thinking about the future?
Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That's part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.
The president asks for cap and trade. That's more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.
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Then there is Medicaid, the medical program for those with lower incomes. In the past, states paid about half of the cost, and they are responsible for 20% of the additional cost imposed by the program's expansion. But almost all the states must balance their budgets, and the new Medicaid spending mandated by ObamaCare comes at a time when states face large deficits and even larger unfunded liabilities for pensions. All this only adds to uncertainty about taxes and spending.
Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors' and producers' uncertainty. That's not the way to get more investment and employment.
Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it's harmful now.
In 1980, I had the privilege of advising Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to ignore the demands of 360 British economists who made the outrageous claim that Britain would never (yes, never) recover from her decision to reduce government spending during a severe recession. They wanted more spending. She responded with a speech promising to stay with her tight budget. She kept a sustained focus on long-term problems. Expectations about the economy's future improved, and the recovery soon began.
That's what the U.S. needs now. Not major cuts in current spending, but a credible plan showing that authorities will not wait for a fiscal crisis but begin to act prudently and continue until deficits disappear, and the debt is below 60% of GDP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) offered a plan, but the administration and Congress ignored it.
The country does not need more of the same. Successful leaders give the public reason to believe that they have a long-term program to bring a better tomorrow. Let's plan our way out of our explosive deficits and our hesitant and jobless recovery by reducing uncertainty and encouraging growth.
Mr. Meltzer is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of "A History of the Federal Reserve" (University of Chicago Press, 2003 and 2010).
www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

Still working on the great room. I am applying a hand rubbed Tuscany wall texture to the walls in the great room, kitchen and pantry.

I tried to take a couple of pictures to show how the wall texture is done but its very difficult to get good wall pictures of this but never-the-less.

I am using joint compound for the texture material. I apply it with a trowel in a random pattern. After it dries I sand it down to get rid of the sharp edges. In the first picture I try to show the texture on the wall before sanding. In the second picture its after I sanded it down. All the sharp edges are gone and what you get are smooth variations in the texture. I have one more wall to sand down then the walls can be primed and basecoated before I apply the faux finish to them.

The house is full of trade workers all day so I am trying to work around everyone. Typically that means I have to leave something and then get back to it when I can so I have several places I am working on at once. The trusses are one of those areas. In the next picture you can see the progress there. I have primed, basecoated and now puting on the first coat of wood grain paint.

Still working on the great room. I am applying a hand rubbed Tuscany wall texture to the walls in the great room, kitchen and pantry.

I tried to take a couple of pictures to show how the wall texture is done but its very difficult to get good wall pictures of this but never-the-less.

I am using joint compound for the texture material. I apply it with a trowel in a random pattern. After it dries I sand it down to get rid of the sharp edges. In the first picture I try to show the texture on the wall before sanding. In the second picture its after I sanded it down. All the sharp edges are gone and what you get are smooth variations in the texture. I have one more wall to sand down then the walls can be primed and basecoated before I apply the faux finish to them.

The house is full of trade workers all day so I am trying to work around everyone. Typically that means I have to leave something and then get back to it when I can so I have several places I am working on at once. The trusses are one of those areas. In the next picture you can see the progress there. I have primed, basecoated and now puting on the first coat of wood grain paint.

A BIRMINGHAM NEWS DATABASE
Jefferson County home values 2009
Want to know your property's assessed value? Get details about your property plus all the homes in your neighborhood.
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With record heat temps being set all over the bay area in the last 2 days you really have to stay hydrated.   Working high on the ceiling job in the great room is really hot work.  I have no idea what the temp is up there but when I go outside and stand in the sun it seems a lot cooler than when I am on the scaffolding up at the ceiling.  I blame Al Gore for inventing global warming.

JUNE 3, 2010
Commercial Deals Abound but Loans Are Scarce
By EMILY MALTBY, Wall Street Journal
Real-estate prices are enticingly low in many areas of the country, prompting business owners to pursue sweet deals on storefronts, manufacturing facilities and other commercial properties. But because banks remain wary of commercial real-estate loans, landing financing to make such a purchase can be time consuming and tedious.
Compared to peak prices in October 2007, commercial property values are down 42%, according to Moody's Investors Service Inc. Price index reports compiled by Moody's and Real Capital Analytics Inc. show that as of March 2010, the cost of industrial and office space fell 32% in the last two years. Retail space also plummeted 28%.
"There is excess space, which opens an opportunity for small firms," says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at National Federation of Independent Business, a Washington advocacy group. "You won't see prices like these for a long time."
Some owners are heeding the call. Randy Scheidt, who heads the legislative subcommittee of the National Association of Realtor's commercial division, says that he is noticing business owners "feeling more comfortable with the future" and weighing whether "such an acquisition would be fiscally prudent."
But the tight credit environment is making it difficult for entrepreneurs to secure those loans. "What is so different today versus 2006 is the underwriting scrutiny," says Mr. Scheidt. "It's not unusual for [the loan process] to take an additional 30 to 60 days."
Eliot Boyle, owner of U.S. Metals LLC in Denver, decided last year to move his sheet-metal roofing and siding business to a new facility. Lease rates in the area were steady, but commercial spaces for sale on the market were falling. "We thought this was a good time to take advantage of how well we were doing and how poorly the real-estate environment was doing," he says.
After preparing his business plan, he visited five banks and was turned down by four. The remaining lender, Bank of the West, which had previously worked with Mr. Boyle, issued him a Small Business Administration loan to buy a $680,000 building. The price for the space —a 50%-larger facility—had dropped 40%.
The process took longer than anticipated and closed one day before the scheduled move. The delays, says Mr. Boyle, stemmed from the bank's requirement of additional environmental reports and other due diligence.
"All those appraisals showed that…if the bank needs to move fast and has to liquidate the building quickly, it can do that," says Mr. Boyle.
"The approval timelines are really not that different than they were in the past," says Jim Cole, spokesperson for the San Francisco-based Bank of the West. "Appraisals take the same amount of time and, as always, environmental reports can take longer than expected."
Many banks taking extra precaution before issuing commercial mortgages are reeling from those kinds of losses and are wary of putting more of those loans on their books. According to a Real Capital Analytics' study of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and bank data, the default rate for commercial real-estate mortgages rose to 4.2%, amounting to $45.5 billion, for the first quarter of 2010. That's the highest default rate since 1992.
Commercial real estate loans have really hurt community and regional banks, which are key lenders to small businesses. They hold just more than half of bank-issued commercial mortgages and their portfolios are likely to hurt for some time. The default trend is expected to continue through 2011, when it may hit 5.4%, before abating, according to Real Capital Analytics.
Although the commercial real estate market has shown some tentative signs of life in the early months of 2010, there is little transparency about the value of many properties, says Sam Chandan, chief economist at Real Capital Analytics. Appraisals help determine price, he explains, but commercial property values are supported by other transactions in the area.
To overcome the credit challenge, experts say entrepreneurs can make themselves more attractive by submitting sound financial plans that back up their income projections and intent to repay the loan. Borrowers with solid credit histories and established bank relationships are more likely to get a loan.
Mr. Chandan says newer businesses can still land financing if they can bring equity to the table, especially if the borrower wants to purchase a vacant property that the bank is holding. But, he cautions, "lending standards have tightened considerably, so it will be challenging."
Write to Emily Maltby at emily.maltby@wsj.com
www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

Imagine sitting with bright students in a seminar, trying to explain why private real-estate developers should pay lower taxes on their income than individuals who invest their money and time in their own human capital to become highly skilled professionals who drive innovation and high-value output in a modern economy.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/the-tax-breaks-for-private-...

"We had to many people that were working to save the world, who sort of lost track of the fact that our primary purpose in life is to create value for share holders"

http://bestin.com/userpost/quote-tony-hayward-working-save-world

JUNE 3, 2010, 9:52 A.M. ET
By BRETT ARENDS
"Why on Earth would you buy down here when you can rent?" asked a friend of mine in Miami Beach not long ago. "Buying is so over."
He promptly moved to Manhattan for work reasons–and bought a $1 million loft on the Upper West Side.
Note the typical behavior. People want to buy when prices are up, and turn more wary when they've collapsed. Logically it makes no sense. Research out Thursday adds some hard numbers.
Real estate website Trulia.com has looked at major real estate markets across the country and asked: Is it cheaper to buy, or to rent?
By Trulia's math my friend was moving in exactly the wrong direction.
Rent in Manhattan: Home prices there are way too high, says Trulia. (Ditto San Francisco.)
Buy in Miami. And Phoenix. And Las Vegas. And most of the other places that have been flattened by the crash. Homes there are cheap compared to rents.
The cross-over point is about 15 times annual rent, the company believes. In other words, as a rough rule of thumb, homes are probably fairly valued in a city when they cost about 15 times a year's rent. So, for example, if you're paying $10,000 a year to rent a place, think twice about buying a home that costs more than $150,000. Dean Baker, economist at the Washington, D.C. think-tank The Center for Economic and Policy Research, came to a similar conclusion in research on the subject in recent years. Fifteen times is the historic average, he said.
So what's the multiple in New York right now?
About 32 times, says Trulia. The average two-bedroom condo or townhouse in New York city costs about 32 times as much to buy as it does to rent. Other major markets over 20 times include Seattle (24 times), San Francisco (22 times) and Portland, Ore. (22 times).
On the other hand Miami list prices are now about eight times annual rents, says Trulia. Phoenix is about 10 times and Las Vegas about 11.
Trulia's data need to be taken with some caveats.
Trulia looked at list prices rather than actual transaction prices, so its figures for prices may be too high.
Furthermore drawing the cut-off point at 15 times rents may be on the low side.
Mr. Baker, in conversation yesterday, said that figure assumes that you're only going to stay in your home for the typical seven years. If you stay a lot longer, he says, the transaction costs of buying and selling become less and less important. That makes owning more attractive.
Nonetheless the Trulia analysis seems directionally correct. Work done by the C.E.P.R. last year came to similar conclusions: Namely that markets like New York and the California coast remained expensive compared to rents, while the hardest hit markets now look cheap.
And Trulia's research emphasizes two points that are absolutely spot on.
First, homeowners need to look first and hardest at present cashflow. The cult of homeownership made no sense. If renting is much cheaper than buying, think seriously about it.
Second: The markets that have fallen the furthest now look like good places to buy, while those that seem to be "safest" aren't. As the saying goes: There is no such thing as a "safe" investment, merely one whose risks are not yet apparent. It's a principle that a lot of people forget time and again.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

I have started on a new job while I am waiting to get back to the big ceiling job. This project is to paint a long railing on a second story patio and then as the stairs go down to the ground level.

First I had to sand down the entire railing which is quite the job in itself. Below you can see a section that is sanded and ready to start.

The first thing is I primed the railing after sanding it down. After priming I painted the railing a dark brown. I am almost done painting the basecoat on. The railing is approximately 140 feet long. The horizontal bars are not that time consuming but the verictal setions that the bars attach to are very time consuming to paint. I should have it all basecoated by Friday.

Here is a small section which I had painted to show the client how it is going to turn out. The entire railing will have a beautiful patina look to it.

White House Plan to Reduce Unnecessary Spending
In the run-up to mid-term elections in November, President Obama is under intense political pressure to show he is serious about cutting the budget deficit. Obama has now proposed an alternate to the line-item veto that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 1998.

The measure Obama is pushing would allow the President to force lawmakers to vote on cutting earmarks and wasteful programs from spending bills and would mark a profound change in the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government and could run into concerted congressional opposition. Under his proposal, after passage of each spending bill, the president could submit within 45 days a package of cuts or rescissions to spending that he deems wasteful. Congress would be required to vote on the package, up or down without amendments, within 25 days.

The administration is requesting what is known as enhanced rescission authority and is an attempt to strike a balance between current budget procedure and the line item veto that Congress gave to President Bill Clinton in 1996. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional.

Early reception on Capitol Hill was mixed. Congressional Democratic leaders were non committal and Republicans were dismissive. Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) said it was hard to take the bill seriously when President Obama, as a senator, voted against a bill that would give similar authority to President George W. Bush.
By: http://new.rotor.com/Publications/RotorNewssupregsup/tabid/177/newsid375...

We still need major Social Security Reform, Banking Reform, Medicare Reform, Immigration Reform and Military Reform to solve the debt problem.

Now lets continue to criticize when we think he is wrong and support the good he does. Treat our President with regard, and respect and research before we speak, promote the truth. Tell Congress to do the same and negotiate but work for the BestIn our future.