Archive for June 30th, 2009

Restaurants’ Long Losing Streak; Consumer Confidence; PPIP Details (Tuesday’s News & Notes)

by David Bodamer June 30th, 2009

The National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Industry Outlook Softened in May as Restaurant Performance Index Posted First Decline in Five Months.

Calculated Risk noted this marks the 21st straight month of traffic declines at restaurants. The blog also produced a chart of the index going back to 2002, which you can view below.

(Click for larger image)
restaurants

Here are some other news and notes on retail and retail real estate from around the Web today.

  • Bloomberg recapped a new CBRE report on retail rents on the world’s most expensive streets. The verdict? “Store rents tumbled in the world’s most expensive locations in the first quarter and will continue to decline through the middle of 2010.”

    New York City kept its top rank from a year earlier as the most expensive retail market even as asking rents on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue fell 10 percent to $1,800 a square foot per year, the Los Angeles-based commercial broker said in a report today. Rents in Hong Kong’s most desirable shopping area ranked second at $975 a square foot and Moscow was third at $790. Paris and Tokyo followed at $776 and $771, respectively.

    “Everything cratered in the fourth quarter and that carried over into the first,” Ray Torto, global chief economist for CB Richard Ellis, said in an interview. “This is not a landlord market.”

  • U.S. chain stores posted their best week since the beginning of the year, according to ICSC and Goldman Sachs. Sales rose 1.6 percent week over week.
  • Consumer confidence fell in June following two months of gains.
  • CNBC previewed the unveiling of further details of the Treasury Department’s PPIP program, which will take place tomorrow. There will be at least nine participants, including a joint venture between GE Capital and private investor Angelo Gordon & Co.
  • REIT.com notes that new legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 23 authorizes the administrators of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), the federal government’s defined contribution retirement program, to expand participants’ investment options, potentially including distinct REIT funds.
  • Reuters provided an update on the CMBS market in the wake of S&P’s coming downgrades of some AAA-bonds.
  • Our weekly newsletter story looks at the current state of concessions.
  • Sears is offering buyers of appliances a guarantee in the event that they lose their jobs.

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Sears to Guarantee Buyers of Appliances

by David Bodamer June 30th, 2009

Bloomberg has not one but two videos about Sears’ new Buyer Protection Program. The Associated Press also reported on the program. The program sounds a lot like what some car companies are doing by providing consumers with a backstop in the event that they lose their jobs within a certain time frame of making a purchase. Hyundai especially has been able to maintain its sales better than competitors in part because of its Assurance Plan.

The free program, which starts Monday and runs through Aug. 1, covers appliance purchases of more than $399 made on a Sears card by cardholders who lose their job. Cardholders must have held a full-time job for at least 60 days when the appliance was purchased.

If a customer loses his or her job, the program will credit 1/12th of the purchase price to the account for each month the cardholder is out of work. If the person is still out of work one year after the purchase, he or she will receive an account credit for what’s left of the purchase amount and get to keep the appliance without any further payment obligations.

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