The Loan Committee™

Florida Community Bank signed a deal to acquire Great Florida Bank, which has been under orders from regulators to raise capital. Weston-based Florida Community Bank, a subsidiary of private equity-funded Bond Street Holdings, missed out on a deal to acquire Jacksonville-based Atlantic Coast Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ACFC) in June when the shareholders of the selling bank voted against the deal.  Read entire article… Author:  Brian Bandell.  Source:  South Florida Business Journal.

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South Florida is undergoing a boom in rail, airport and seaport logistics infrastructure.  PortMiami in August is expected to begin a $206 million dredging project to deepen the port’s existing 42-foot channel to at least 50 feet. This will accommodate the large, post-Panamax ships that fit through the expanded Panama Canal in 2015.  Read entire article… Author:  Kevin Gale.  Source:  South Florida Business Journal.

High demand from investors and low interest rates continue to push down capitalization (cap) rates in the commercial real estate market, according to an analysis from consulting firm PwC. The report noted that in the second quarter of 2013, the combined overall cap rate fell to 6.91 percent across the 34 United States markets included in the survey conducted by PwC. read entire article… Author:  Carisa Chappell.  Source:  REIT.com.

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Construction is suddenly rampant again across Miami-Dade County, and demand for sites is driving up the cost of commercially zoned land.  “Prices are increasing at an incredible pace,” said Melissa Tapanes Llahues, a shareholder with Bercow Radell & Fernandez, a law firm specializing in zoning, land use and environmental law.  read entire aticle… Author:  Marilyn Bowden.  Source:  Miami Today.

The FIBA Wealth Management Forum will be held at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel in Miami, FL.  The forum will facilitate knowledge exchange on cutting edge issues through targeted panel discussions and current case studies combined with the insightful perspectives of their invited experts.

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This may well be the year that property owners in secondary and tertiary markets get a chance to cash in on the spending spree of the nation’s largest publicly held REITs and real estate operating companies. The torrid pace of acquisitions seen within this sector over the past two years is expected to continue this year, but with more buyers casting their nets across more markets.  read entire article.  Author:  Mark Heschmeyer.  Source:  CoStar® Group.

With vacancy rates modestly falling and rents moderately rising in commercial real estate sectors, market fundamentals have improved, but financing remains a challenge for small business, according to the National Association of Realtors® quarterly commercial real estate forecast…National vacancy rates over the coming year are expected to decline 0.1 percentage point in the office market, 0.5 point in industrial, and 0.3 point for retail; however, the average multifamily vacancy rate is forecast to rise 0.2 percentage point, with that sector still showing the tightest availability and biggest rent increases.  read entire article.  Author/Media Contact:  Walter Molony.  Source:  National Association of Realtors®

The wave of new banking regulations that Congress created to deter and punish Wall Street’s misdeeds is landing with much greater impact on the U.S.’s almost 7,000 community banks than on the too-big-to-fail lenders. Community banks didn’t cause the financial crisis; they played by the rules. Because of their time-tested business model, one based on customer relationships rather than transaction volumes, community banks aren’t a threat to the financial system. Yet they are being forced to pay a penalty in regulatory costs — to comply with rules aimed at preventing the bad behavior on Wall Street from happening again. read entire article…. Author:  Camden R. Fine, Source:  Bloomberg