LOOPNET SOLD to COSTAR; How much more will our fees go up on the 88,000 subscribers ?

COSTAR ACQUIRES LOOPNET

CoStar Group has signed a definitive agreement to acquire LoopNet for approximately $860 million. The transaction between the two companies is expected to close by the end of 2011. As part of the agreement, LoopNet shareholders will receive $16.50 in cash and approximately 0.04 shares of CoStar Group common stock for each share of LoopNet common stock. This equates to a total equity value of approximately $860 million and an enterprise value of $762 million. Upon closing, LoopNet shareholders will own approximately 8.5 percent of CoStar shares outstanding on a fully diluted basis. In addition, CoStar has received a commitment from J.P. Morgan for a $415 million loan and a $50 million revolving credit facility, which will be used to fund the acquisition and for general operating purposes.
"CoStar revolutionized how the industry researches commercial real estate and LoopNet revolutionized the way the industry markets commercial real estate," said Andrew Florence, president and CEO of CoStar, in a statement. "We expect the combination of our companies to give the $11 trillion commercial real estate market the full benefit of the Internet." With the merger, CoStar's subscriber base stands to grow from 88,000 subscribers to at least 160,000 subscribers, representing approximately 15 percent of the commercial real estate market's participants. LoopNet.com currently has 4.8 million registered users and more than 6 million unique visits quarterly.

For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com  Offer opportunities for Houston office space. Thank you for your interest.

University of Texas buys GOLD-- Why not Real Estate?

Institutional investors are no doubt recoiling on news that one of their very own – the $20 billion Texas University Endowment Fund – has taken a $1 billion position in dumb ol' gold bars, stored on their behalf in New York vaults, collecting dust but earning no interest and paying no dividend. This report at Bloomberg has all the details: The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board.  The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer ....

The decision to turn the fund’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.

“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”

What has the world come to?
Just think how silly this would have sounded just a few years ago -- that is, before the financial market crash caused investors all around the world to start doubting all sorts of conventional wisdom, not the least of which is the idea that the U.S. currency is sound.

For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com  Offer opportunities for Houston office space. Thank you for your interest.

Houston leasing more and more space

HOUSTON -- Willbros United States Holdings, Inc., an oil and gas equipment and services provider, has signed an 87,212-square-foot office lease at Five Post Oak Park in Houston's Galleria submarket. Willbros extended its original lease for 10 years, expanding its size by 44,178 square feet. Tim Relyea, Joe Peddie and David Guion of Cushman & Wakefield of Texas represented Willbros, while Clint Bawcom and Brian McMackin of Cassidy Turley represented the landlord, Shorenstein Properties LLC. Five Post Oak Park is a 567,319-square-foot Class A office building located at 4400 Post Oak Pkwy.

For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com Offer opportunities for Houston office space. Thank you for your interest.


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Thanks,

Ed A. Ayres

Houston Realty Advisors, Inc.

Mitaquye oyasin

Google will no longer support real estate listing in 2011

Search giant Google will no longer support real estate listings uploaded to its classifed listings site on Google Maps, the company announced today.Consumers will no longer be able to find for-sale, foreclosure, or rental properties through the search function on Google Maps, and real estate professionals will no longer be able to upload their listings to Google Base, the company's classifieds site, which is being replaced by Google Shopping APIs and will not support real estate listings."In part due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API, we've decided to discontinue the real estate feature within Google Maps on February 10, 2011," the company said in a blog post. Home seekers can still use "Google search results to find helpful real estate information and websites" as well as view local businesses, directions and transit times through Google Maps and explore neighborhoods through Google Street View, the company added.
"This does not come as a surprise to me. Even with Google's huge audience, it shows having listing data is clearly not enough to deliver a good real estate search experience and build audience," said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of property search site Trulia.
The company added that Google's removal of listings data will not affect its mobile application, which uses the Google Maps API.

For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : http://www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com/

HOUSTON 2010 We are No 1#, What is instore for 2011????

2010 Houston ranks as No. 1 manufacturing city in U.S.


Houston is the No. 1 manufacturing employer in the country, with 228,226 employed in the industry, Manufacturers' News Inc. reported.

Houston's nearly 230,000 manufacturing jobs topped the nation, according to the Manufacturers' News Inc. report. The industrial directory publisher ranked cities according to number of factory jobs, using Standard Industrial Classifications and including oil and gas exploration categories.

Texas overall dominated the ranking. Dallas ranked No. 6 with 81,626 positions, while San Antonio was No. 17 with 52,039 people. Austin came in at No. 26 with 43,103 workers. Manufacturing accounts for about 9 percent of jobs in Houston.

New York was the second largest factory employer with 139,127 jobs followed by Chicago with 108,692 and Los Angeles with 83,719.

Cities that registered notable changes since 2008 included Detroit, falling to No. 45 from No. 29; Seattle, which has moved up to 34th from 46th; and St. Louis, which overtook Cincinnati as the nation's fifth-largest manufacturing employer.

Since August 2008, the nation's top 10 industrial cities have lost a total of 95,805 manufacturing jobs, or 8.4 percent, according to the report.

Things are moving up and now is rthe time to lock in reantl rates!!!!  Good time to BUY!!!!! as well!!

For more information on Houston manufacturing or office space, Houston retail space, Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call Ed Ayres @ 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com

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Heritage Plaza sells for $325 Million or $282.70 PSF

HOUSTON -- Atlanta-based Goddard Investment Group has finalized the sale of Heritage Plaza, a landmark office complex in downtown Houston, to New York-based Brookfield Properties Corp. for $325 million. Heritage Plaza, located at 1111 Bagby St., comprises an office tower, which is approximately 84 percent leased, constructed in 1986 and the Federal Land Bank building built in 1935. Tenants of the office tower include Deloitte, EOG Resources and Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. It is Houston's second highest price ever paid for an office building, behind only the Bank of America Center sale for $367 million in August 2007.