Today's Big Schmooze

In Atlanta this morning, there was some quid pro quo. You gave us a heartwarming, 500-person turnout  for our expert panels covering the equity and debt  sides of the capital markets: aka the Breakfast & Schmooze at the J.W. Marriott Buckhead. In return, when a nearby parking lot threatened to tow cars, we sent one of our enforcers (ok, one our sales guys down from NY) to "take care of it."

Takeaway? Equity has no longer on the sidelines over the past 120 days, says Eastdil Secured?s Michael McDonald, who's been seeing discounts in the office sector at 15% (not 40%). He adds there's been a movement toward core office properties and that IO(interest only) is back. North American Properties' Mark Toro says agency debt is being replaced by life companies and that today's market is competitive for buyers. Tishman Speyer?s Jim Meyer says Tishman is not looking to sell in this market and sees a couple of opportunities for equity: buying a building or putting new equity into equity products at preferred levels. MetLife?s Tom Coakley commented that the longer it takes for deals to right size, the longer it takes for the equity markets to right themselves.

The debt panel  featured esteemed experts including Colliers International's Hank Hall, TriMont Real Estate Advisors John Charles, HFF's Mark Sixour, ING Real Estate Finance Group's Jason Tessler, and Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage Capital's Rod Reppe. John says that when the market was hot there were no protections in the loan servicing docs, which resulted in tranche warfare, but that's changing with new CMBS issuances. Jason announced ING?s new opportunity program ($200M), which will be up and running in the next 30 days, to finance 75-80% levered deals. Plus a job tip: ING is looking to hire young talent for analyst and producer roles and says there are now as many positions at that level as there are qualified job candidates.