Fourth Annual Spring Lender Conference a Sell Out

    DALLAS, TX, May 15, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The impact of interest rates, low energy costs, loan maturities and housing trends on the state of commercial real estate were among the many topics examined at the Fourth Annual Trigild Spring Lender Conference, held recently at the Hotel ZaZa in Dallas.

According to conference founder and Trigild president Judy Hoffman, a record-breaking number of attendees convened for the sold-out event, which examined trends and conditions in the commercial real estate, finance and lending markets.

"Respected industry leaders addressed topics including enforcing CRE loans, loan maturities, alternatives to bankruptcy, successful resolutions and adding value to tough properties," Hoffman said. "We added new panels this year to address the impact of decreased oil pricing and servicing single family residential portfolios. Additionally, there was a great deal of discussion about upcoming loan maturities, with most panelists agreeing that they will have some effect - especially in tertiary markets - but the problem hinges on the direction of interest rates."

Victor Calanog, PhD, chief economist and senior vice president at Reis Inc., further examined the impact of interest rates as this year's keynote speaker.

Calanog, who oversees Reis Inc.'s market forecasting, valuation and real estate portfolio analytics services, addressed "Commercial Real Estate: The Year of Potential Turning Point" discussing a range of issues including trends in capital markets, the prognosis for interest rate increases and first quarter trends in multifamily, office, retail and industrial.

Among the highlights of his presentation:

• Multifamily fundamentals remain strong, but vacancies may begin to rise this year.
• Office and retail fundamentals are still recovering slowly, but figures over the last six months suggest that strong job growth might finally be supporting a faster rate of office rent growth and absorption.
• Industrial properties are enjoying a broad based recovery, although there has been a bit of a pullback in the first quarter of 2015.
• The US is unlikely to be bogged down in stagnation; but given our integration with the global economy, non-domestic idiosyncratic factors (very challenging to forecast) represent the highest risk to the rosiest of predictions for US growth in 2015.
• Fed may raise interest rates this year; welcome news to many

Calanog's overall outlook for the economy in 2015? "A lot of tailwinds and some headwinds."

Event sponsors were: Burr & Forman, Ballard Spahr, Akerman, Miller Canfield, Polsinelli, Keybank Real Estate Capital, Sheppard Mullin, Buchalter Nemer, Seyfarth Shaw, Duane Morris, O'Connor Cochran, Pepper Hamilton, Baker Donelson, Stites & Harbison, Thompson & Knight and Plunkett Cooney.

The next Trigild Lender Conference is set for October 14 - 16, 2015, at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.

About Trigild
Headquartered in San Diego with offices throughout the country, Trigild has nearly 40 years of management and fiduciary expertise, with a focus on maximizing value for assets in an array of industries, including commercial real estate, multifamily and hospitality. Trigild has developed a full service national operating platform providing institutional quality services to private real estate investors and financial institutions. For information, visit http://www.trigild.com.

# # #