It Ain't Just Housing

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

More bad housing news this morning but that ain't all, it's beginning to look systemic to me.

Commercial Property Owners Choose to Default

Like homeowners walking away from mortgaged houses that plummeted in value, some of the largest commercial-property owners are defaulting on debts and surrendering buildings worth less than their loans.

Excerpt: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

[dquigley]

I didn't read the link yet -- but -- If the commercial sector is allowed to walk away from upside down mortgages without consequence - the economy will be in for a long ugly ride. It's one thing to allow ones homestead to revert to the lender without enforcing any deficiency judgement (thanx to bailout bull), quite another if commercial properties acquired for business profit are allowed to revert with just a slap on the wrist.This will allow healthy companies an easy means to divest their upside down real estate holdings and reaquire similar properties under slightly modified ownership at greatly reduced prices.