by Calculated Risk on 10/07/2010 02:13:00 AM

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

From Reuters: U.S. mall vacancy rate dips for first time in 3 years

The national vacancy rate for large regional malls fell to 8.8 percent in the third quarter from 9.0 percent in the second ... Asking rents were unchanged at $38.72 per square foot after declining for seven straight quarters ... At the strip malls ... vacancy was 10.9 percent.

"While retail properties were offered a reprieve from massive deterioration, it is too early to say that the market has bottomed," said Victor Calanog, Reis director of research.

Many retailers have long-term leases that expire soon. The weak U.S. economy may prompt retail tenants not to renew, pushing up vacancy again, he said.

At regional malls, the record vacancy rate was 9.0% in Q2 2010 (Reis started tracking regional malls in 2000). The record vacancy rate for strip malls was in 1990 at 11.1%.

by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2010 06:59:00 PM

From MarketWatch: Roubini: 40% chance of double-dip recession

There is a 40% probability of a double-dip recession, but you don't need one for the global economy to feel like it is in a deep, continuing recession, said Nouriel Roubini ... "You don't need another Lehman story, you don't need a major loss," said Roubini at an American Enterprise Institute event. "You can have death by a thousand cuts."

I'm not sure how you assign precise odds (yesterday Goldman Sachs put the odds at about 25% to 30%), but I think the most likely outcome is sluggish growth. And that means the economy will remain susceptible to shocks.

And, as Roubini noted, it doesn't matter if the economy is technically in a recession - it will feel like a recession to millions of Americans as long as jobs are scarce and incomes are under pressure.

by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2010 03:30:00 PM

Typically retail companies start hiring for the holiday season in October, and really increase hiring in November. Here is a graph that shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year and a forecast for 2010.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This really shows the collapse in retail hiring in 2008 and the weak recovery in 2009. This also shows how the season has changed over time - back in the '80s, retailers hired mostly in December. Now the peak month is November, and many retailers start hiring seasonal workers in October.

From Stephanie Clifford and Catherine Rampell at the NY Times: Dim Outlook for Holiday Jobs

As the economy sputters, prospects are dimming for unemployed workers who were banking on a seasonal retail job to carry them through the holidays. ...

The recruiting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, forecasts that retailers will add up to 600,000 jobs in October, November and December, compared with a net gain of 501,400 holiday jobs over the same three months in 2009.
...
Challenger Gray expects that companies may wait to hire until November or December — once they have a feel for how much consumers are willing to spend.

Last year - looking at the graph - retailers held back on hiring in October and waited until November (as Challenger Gray expects to happen again this year). The increase to 600,000 is significant, but still below the levels of 1992 through 2007 - except for the recession year of 2001.

This hiring will be watched closely, and I suspect seasonal hiring will be stronger than in 2009, but well below the 700+ thousand jobs in 2004 through 2007.

Note: Clifford and Rampell also note that the supply chain for retailers is long - and many retailers placed orders earlier this year when the outlook seemed brighter to some (not to those paying attention!).

While retailers are just now making plans for Christmas hiring, they had to make plans for Christmas merchandise months ago, and that lag might create some inventory problems.

Last year the retailers ran lean on inventory, but if this year is slow, there will be plenty of discounting.

by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2010 01:49:00 PM

From Treasury Secretary Geithner: Remarks at the Brookings Institution

[F]or the recovery to be sustainable, there must ... be a change in the pattern of global growth. For too long, many countries oriented their economies toward producing for export rather than consuming at home, counting on the United States to import many more of their goods and services than they bought of ours.

The United States will do its part to achieve this adjustment. Private savings have increased significantly, and, as the recovery strengthens, we will bring down our fiscal deficits to a sustainable level.

But as America saves more, countries overly reliant on exports to us for their own growth will need to change their policies, or else global growth will slow and all of us will be worse off. Countries that chronically run large surpluses need to undertake policies that will boost their domestic demand.
...
That brings me to the second policy challenge: we believe it is very important to see more progress by the major emerging economies to more flexible, more market-oriented exchange rate systems. This is particularly important for those countries whose currencies are significantly undervalued.

This is a problem because when large economies with undervalued exchange rates act to keep the currency from appreciating, that encourages other countries to do the same.

This sets off a damaging dynamic, described first by my former colleague Ted Truman, as "competitive non appreciation." Over time, more and more countries face stronger pressure to lean against the market forces pushing up the value of their currencies. The collective impact of this behavior risks either causing inflation and asset bubbles in emerging economies, or else depressing consumption growth and intensifying short-term distortions in favor of exports.

This is a multilateral problem. It is unfair to countries that were already running more flexible regimes and let their currencies appreciate. And it requires a cooperative approach to solve, because emerging economies individually will be less likely to move, unless they are confident other countries would move with them.

This problem exposes once again the need for an effective multilateral mechanism to encourage economies running current account surpluses to abandon export-oriented policies, let their currencies appreciate, and strengthen domestic demand.

This was aimed primarily at China, but also at other countries with export driven economies. Everyone can't devalue at once ...

by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2010 11:35:00 AM

This is the new repeat sales index for commercial real estate. Previously I've only been using the Moodys/REAL Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) for commercial real estate.

From CoStar: CoStar Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices

General commercial real estate and the broad-based CoStar composite index for all commercial real estate reversed the positive trend reported in last month’s findings and came in at -3.48% and -1.38% respectively for the month of August. ...

Repeat sales values for investment grade commercial property reversed their negative trend from July and moved positive again with a 3.73% climb in August. We continue to see a significant spread in cap rates and prices from the larger property in prime core markets to the property in second- and third-tier broader markets. Even with tighter financing, there appears to be plenty of institutional and REIT capital oriented to the lower-risk core markets.

For the past three months, all three indices are negative at -3.92% for the broad general index, -3.24% for investment grade and -3.92% for the composite. For the past 12 months, all three indices are down approximately 10% to 11%.

One reason for the volatility of these indices discussed here is the proportion of distress sales, which are continuing to climb in absolute levels, although as a percentage of sales they have leveled since June. This volume of distressed sales, while certainly not a tsunami, is still significant especially among lodging and multifamily properties.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph from CoStar shows the indexes for investment grade, general commercial and a composite index. The investment grade index had been increasing since the beginning of the year, but the overall index is still declining.

It is important to remember that there are very few CRE transactions (compared to residential), and that there is a high percentage of distressed sales.

On the number of transactions:

The CCRSI September report is based on sales data through the end of August. In August, 559 sales pairs were recorded.
...
Distress continues to be a significant factor in the index results. Since 2007, the ratio of distressed sales to overall sales has increased from approximately 1% to approximately 23% currently. Discounts on distressed property sales (REOs and short sales) compared to non-distressed sales are running an average of 40% for multifamily, 20% for office and industrial and 17% for retail property based on 2010 data to date.

by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2010 08:15:00 AM

ADP reports:

Private-sector employment decreased by 39,000 from August to September on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. The estimated change of employment from July to August was revised up from the previously reported decline of 10,000 to an increase of 10,000.

The decline in private employment in September confirms a pause in the economic recovery already evident in other data. A deceleration of employment occurred in all the major sectors shown in The ADP Report and for all sizes of payroll.
...
Unlike the estimate of total establishment employment to be released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), today’s ADP National Employment Report does not include the effects of federal hiring — and now firing — for the 2010 Census.

Note: ADP is private nonfarm employment only (no government jobs).

The consensus was for ADP to show an increase of about 23,000 private sector jobs in September, so this was way below consensus.

The BLS reports on Friday, and the consensus is for no change in payroll jobs in September, on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis, with the loss of around 78,000 temporary Census 2010 jobs (+78,000 ex-Census).