Roundtable Senior Policy Advisor Testifies on Commercial Real Estate: A Chicago Perspective on Current Market Challenges and Possible Responses

Washington, D.C. – May 18, 2010 – (RealEstateRama) — Today, Bill Askew, Senior Policy Advisor, for the Financial Services Roundtable testified before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing was titled “Commercial Real Estate: A Chicago Perspective on Current Market Challenges and Possible Responses.”

“Commercial real estate is a five trillion dollar industry supporting twelve million jobs. Banks and commercial mortgage backed securities are the largest sources of credit for CRE,” Askew said.  “Revitalizing the CMBS market is critical.”

Askew presented three key recommendations to the Committee to work towards this revitalization:

• Effectively utilize securitization markets to sell commercial real estate assets taken over by regulators, such as the RTC and FDIC did in wake of the savings and loan crisis,
• Extend the TALF program, and inject liquidity and confidence into the market by encouraging the securitization of privately originated loans in important asset classes to consumers and businesses
• Eliminate Pro-Cyclical Accounting Practices.

In April, the Roundtable issued a white paper, “Recapitalizing Commercial Real Estate: A Roadmap to Recovery” with recommendations on stabilizing the Commercial Real Estate markets.

“The Roundtable encourages greater coordination between accounting policy and other regulatory and statutory change to avoid market dislocation, and to provide markets with certainty and confidence,” Askew concluded.

Recapitalizing Commercial Real Estate: A Roadmap to Recovery can be found online at: http://www.fsround.org/hyperlink/Recapitalizing%20Commercial%20Real%20Estate.pdf.

The Financial Services Roundtable represents 100 of the largest integrated financial services companies providing banking, insurance, and investment products and services to the American consumer.  Member companies participate through the Chief Executive Officer and other senior executives nominated by the CEO.

Roundtable member companies provide fuel for America’s economic engine, accounting directly for $74.7 trillion in managed assets, $1.1 trillion in revenue, and 2.3 million jobs.