"The number of apartment properties falling into financial trouble is far outstripping the number of distressed communities resolved through sale or otherwise, according to a June report from real estate research firm Real Capital Analytics. Outstanding apartment distress is up $8.1 billion year-to-date and totaled $16.8 billion at the end of May, according to the report. Another $750 million of apartment properties had gone into default or foreclosure through mid-June, the report added."

"Initially conceived as a way for Freddie Mac to compete in the CMBS market, Freddie’s Capital Markets Execution (CME) program has become the first source of CMBS based on aggregated multifamily housing loans in over a year. The program allows Freddie Mac to continue to provide liquidity to the multifamily housing industry without adding new loans to its balance sheet, says Patti Saylor, Vice President, Offerings and Customer Management for Freddie Mac."

"Womble Carlyle Ecology Innovations LLC will work with clients to create or preserve wetlands and other environmentally protected areas. That ecologically sound property can be turned into a credit and sold to developers whose plans will destroy other wetlands."

Why meetings stink.

Another Shatner as Palin classic.

Digitized versions of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of cities in North Carolina pre-1922. Very descriptive and detailed maps of downtown areas. So far four cities have been scanned in: Charlotte, Greensboro, Kinston and Wilmington. Hopefully Winston-Salem will be soon.

The man behind PingWi-Fi is in Winston-Salem for a while and he's posted twice about our fair city. First he wrote about the local Hells Angels funeral and most recently he wrote about the scene on Trade Street. I think we might be growing on him.

Ed points out that Triad Watch and Fec "have declared jihad against real estate developers on the city council and county commission" and asks "How much rollback is enough, and is it possible to go too far in the opposite direction?"