July 17, 2009

Today's Associated Press report about commercial real estate woes addresses rising default rates on loans to commercial properties around the country.Local commercial real estate experts say defaults haven't been a problem in Huntsville and Madison County, but banking industry woes have left their thumbprint here in another way: Tighter lending guidelines, rolled downhill from the Federal Reserve, have slowed some projects.

"You have to have more cash," said Bart Smith, managing broker for Graham & Company in Huntsville. "It used to be that you could have 20 percent or 25 percent down for a commercial loan; now sometimes you have to have 50 percent. For the long-term, that's good, because you have less debt. But short-term, it's just killing the market.