As energy costs continue to rise, containing costs has become a top priority for building owners and managers. That’s where clean tech, processes or products that create and manage energy more efficiently, comes in…

Real-estate investment trusts raised a record-breaking amount of equity in 2011, which analysts believe will be used to pursue acquisitions.

Real estate investments are sometimes valuated based on prices of comparable properties or on the adjusted construction cost to construct a property. Investors are more prone to look at the Cap Rate (capitalization rate or overall rate). The Cap Rate is the rate at which a stream of payments over time convert to an amount of capital.

Historically, we’ve been very limited in what we do for retail incentives…

Business owners have been cutting expenses, reducing payroll, and trying to chase down new sources of cash flow for two years. Yet, as the economic recovery lags, many realize they need to do even more. But what is left to cut? Where can they find new streams of revenue?

In a recent article in Commercial Investment which is a monthly magazine of the CCIM Institute, David Rifkind describes himself as a CEO—Corporate Executive Optimist.

The convenience of the “mobile wallet” for making payments and accessing bank accounts from anywhere, at any time, could change the definition of “banking hours” — and the need for bank branches. In a recent Deloitte LLC video presentation, Brian Johnston, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, said that, “Out of the top 25 banks, I am not sure that there is one out there that doesn’t have some type of focus or initiative in place right now on the mobile channel.”

Upticks in consumer spending and hints at economic improvement are fueling some long-awaited positive momentum in the retail sector. Despite the mild industry buzz, the latest data reports offer the view many property owners see when they look around their markets: Vacancy for strip centers rose to 11.0 percent nationwide in 2Q11 — just 10 basis points below the two-decade high of 11.1 percent vacancy in 1990, according to Reis.

Despite the retail market’s slow trek toward recovery, Carmen R. Austin, CCIM, associate broker at Saurage Rotenberg Commercial Real Estate in Baton Rouge, La., sees a lot of opportunity in this struggling sector.

Saurage Rotenberg Commercial Real Estate has recognized one of its associate brokers who recently completed the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Jay W. Levine Leadership Academy.