Home Values' Continued Recovery

The S&P / Case-Shiller home price index is out and prices rose 2% in August on a year-over-year basis.  Here is a Bloomberg article and a Calculated Risk blog post on the increase.  In a report full of positive housing news, this sentence on Phoenix from the Calculated Risk post stood out:

“Phoenix continues to lead the home price recovery. It recorded its fourth consecutive month of double-digit positive annual returns with a +18.8% rate for August."

Par For The Course

The business development company, Corporate Capital, Trust just filed an 8-K and Form 497 this morning.  At September 30, 2012, its portfolio was purchased at 99.9% of par.  The syndicated loan market for small and medium sized private companies is (obviously) fully priced.

Doing The Right Thing

In a filing last week, KBS REIT II's advisor announced its waiving any internalization fee in the event the REIT becomes self-managed through a merger/consolidation with its advisor.  This is another example of a large, non-traded REIT sponsor foregoing a potentially large - but controversial - payday that typically comes at the expense of investors.  I'm wondering whether this is the first step in KBS REIT II's process to provide liquidity to investors.

Separately, Wells Core REIT announced that it will close its offering next summer when its original offering term ends.  A follow-on offering would have extended the REIT's offering period an additional two years, making it a total of five years.  Wells REIT II has raised nearly $400 million in investor equity, and has approximately ten months remaining to complete its offering.  It's good that Core is skipping the ugly share revaluation process - and subsequent marketing push - that has further stained the non-traded REIT this year.