Palm Beach counties mixed picture in commercial real estate

Investors are snapping up shopping centers and apartment complexes but shunning offices. That’s according to LoopNet’s analysis of investment in commercial real estate in Palm Beach County for the 12 months ended Sept. 30.

LoopNet tracks institutional-grade deals of $2.5 million or more. Its findings:

Sales of retail properties soared to $295 million in the past year from $47 million a year ago. Capitalization rates rose to 7.8 percent from 7.4 percent last year. (The “cap rate” is a common valuation measure for commercial real estate. The higher the rate, the less optimistic investors are.)
Apartment sales rose to $425 million from $134 million. Price per unit soared to $138,234 from $76,856 a year ago, while cap rates fell to 5.6 percent from 6.5 percent.
Office sales fell to $90 million this year from $186 million a year ago. Prices per square foot plunged to $108 from $185, while office cap rates jumped to 9.6 percent from 8 percent.

By Jeff Ostrowski
Source: Palm Beach Post

Finns visit Lake Worth in an effort to strengthen Sister City ties

Finns visit Lake Worth in an effort to strengthen Sister City ties

Finns to the left, Finns to the right as Lake Worth fetes visitors from its Finnish sister city

Finns to the left, Finns to the right as Lake Worth fetes visitors from its Finnish sister city

Finnair to Codeshare on American Airlines' New Chicago-Helsinki Route

American will begin operating its new Chicago- Helsinki route in April, 2011, the flight will depart Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) at 3:30p.m. and arrive at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (HEL) at 8:30a.m. the next day. The flight from HEL back to ORD will depart at 2:p.m., arriving at ORD at 3:20p.m.. This flight will give more flight options not only to the West coast but also to the MidWest and East coast.

http://www.airlinesanddestinations.com/airlines/finnair-to-codeshare-on-american-airlines-new-chicago-helsinki-route/

Shipbuilder STX Finland to Slash Hundreds of Jobs

Shipbuilder STX Finland to Slash Hundreds of Jobs

Finland did it again: The Best Education

Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) has released the second edition of its Global Higher Education Rankings of Affordability and Accessibility. Using the same approach as its groundbreaking 2005 international comparative study, which used a composite of six different measures of affordability and four of accessibility, the results show unambiguously that Finland has both the most affordable and accessible system of higher education in the world.
"Finland's results are very good across the board," said HESA President Alex Usher, who was also the report's lead author. "They have reasonable education costs, a strong and generous system of both loans and grants, high participation rates and an egalitarian student intake. From a student perspective, there is a lot to like there."

Source: http://www.ireg-observatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103&Itemid=1

The full report can be accessed at http://higheredstrategy.com/publications/GHER2010_FINAL.pdf