hotels articles

There are numerous significant distinctions between commercial real estate investing and residential real estate investing. Of over 20 major commercial loan differences, several important issues will be covered in this business financing article and other commercial financing elements such as SBA loan refinancing will be described in additional reports.

With the increasingly chaotic investment climate for residential financing in the United States, more residential real estate investors are exploring commercial real estate and business finance opportunities. It is important for prospective commercial property owners, business owners and business investors to educate themselves about options for the business loan and commercial mortgage environment they will be facing.

Stated Income Commercial Mortgage and Commercial Loan Opportunities

Stated income commercial loan programs will preclude the need for personal tax returns to qualify for a business loan. However the stated income commercial mortgage will not change documentation requirements involving income for the business being purchased. In contrast to residential mortgages, no doc (no documentation) loans are not possible for commercial financing.

Business Finance Minimum and Maximum Amounts

Commercial property loans and business opportunity financing less than $100,000 are not routinely available. A typical maximum for a stated income commercial mortgage is $2 million. Several common business financing possibilities are limited to a $5 million maximum.

Down Payment Requirements for a Business Loan

Down payment requirements for buying a business commonly vary from 10% to 25% or more. The specific amount will depend on business experience of the borrower, requirements for business opportunity business finance, type of business and credit scores.

Business Opportunity Financing and Business Loan Interest Rates

Interest rates for a business loan are generally higher than residential financing and rates up to 13% and even higher are possible. It is possible to obtain both fixed and variable commercial mortgage interest rates. Business opportunity financing typically has interest rates 1-3% higher than a comparable commercial real estate loan situation.

Appraisals for a Commercial Mortgage or Business Opportunity Loan to Buy a Business

It is normal for commercial property and business opportunity appraisals to require over a month to complete. Commercial appraisals are much more complex and expensive than residential appraisals. Business opportunity financing and commercial loan value is traditionally based on business income rather than a comparable property analysis used in residential appraisals.

Business Loan Personal Guarantors for Buying a Business

A personal guarantee from all principal owners is usually a standard requirement for business finance situations even when a business is titled under corporate ownership. Because of this, individual credit scores of the business owners will be an important factor to qualify for a business loan. Individuals should expect to personally guarantee a commercial mortgage if they own over 20% of a business.

Other Important Business Loan Differences Compared to Residential Financing

As noted previously, there are too many differences between residential financing and business finance situations to describe adequately in one article. Some of the critical issues discussed in separate reports are how to avoid common business loan problems, SBA loan financing, balloon and recall provisions for a commercial mortgage, business opportunity financing and special purpose commercial properties.

The cast of characters. Everyone knows what a bank is. Most of us understand what a lender is – an institution from whom money is borrowed. Adding the word “commercial” to describe a lender simply means that the financial entity deals with businesses as opposed to individuals. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “commercial loans” as: “loans made to businesses as distinguished from personal-consumer credit loans.” Although a lender could make both commercial and consumer loans, this blog is dedicated primarily to commercial matters.

The field of law. To me, commercial foreclosure law refers to the rules and procedures applicable when a business defaults on a loan secured by some kind of collateral. So, if you work for an institution that loaned money to a business, and if the borrower defaulted under the terms of the loan agreement, then commercial foreclosure law provides the judicial framework for the protection of your rights. Typically, those rights involve the ability to collect money owed by the borrower through the sale of the loan collateral.

Collateral. Black’s states that collateral is property pledged as security for the satisfaction of a debt. If a business defaults on a loan, the lender can initiate a foreclosure action to compel the sale of the loan collateral and therefore collect the amounts owed by the borrower through proceeds from the sale. There are all kinds of business-related collateral. Perhaps the most recognizable is real estate – the land a business owns. Some of the most interesting cases, however, deal with personal property collateral, which can be any property imaginable that is owned by a business – a fleet of cars, office furniture or intangibles such as accounts receivable.

Lien. A lien is a description of an encumbrance on property: “a claim . . . on property for payment of some debt.” Black’s. In the context of my blog, a lien arises by written contract between a lender and a borrower – either a real estate mortgage agreement or a personal property security agreement. The lien granted by a borrower to a lender gives a lender the right to foreclose upon the subject property (collateral) for payment of the debt in the event of a default.

Commercial foreclosure. Turning again to Black’s, a foreclosure is defined, in part, as the “enforcement of a lien . . . or mortgage . . ..” Paraphrasing Black’s, foreclosure is the legal process by which real or personal property subject to a lien is sold in satisfaction of a debt. To foreclose means to terminate a borrower’s rights in the subject property. A foreclosure that is commercial merely refers to the termination of a business borrower’s rights in its property.

A form of collection. Commercial foreclosure law is a special kind of collection law. It’s a body of rules governing how banks and financial institutions recover money by asserting rights in, and selling, collateral that a business granted to secure the loan. It’s the set of legal principles applicable to a lender needing to collect money owed by a business, which failed to make its loan payments or otherwise defaulted under the terms of the loan documents. If any of these matters are relevant to what you do for a living, I welcome your visits to my blog and hope that you will e-mail me with your questions or comments.

Commercial mortgage lenders will frequently have very specific requirements stipulating that purchase funds must have been in a verifiable account for a specific period of time, often 3-6 months or longer (this is called seasoning because it is tantamount to requiring that the funds have matured by being in the same place for a while). Seasoning of ownership for commercial mortgage loans is similar to seasoning of funds, except this requirement involves the minimum time someone has owned a commercial property before they can refinance the property. Most traditional banks require a minimum holding period (usually a year or more) before a commercial mortgage loan can be refinanced. That minimum period is the ownership “seasoning limitation”, and if it is one year then it means that a commercial mortgage loan cannot be refinanced for at least a year.

That is not a particularly troubling limitation EXCEPT in the case of refinancing after a 1031 Exchange. In the case of Commercial 1031 Exchange properties, commercial borrowers should benefit from commercial mortgage loans for 1031 Exchange Refinancing without seasoning of ownership limitations , and there are a limited number of sources which do not impose ownership seasoning limitations on refinancing 1031 Exchange Properties.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT THE 1031 EXCHANGE REFINANCING SCENARIO?

In simplified terms, with a 1031 commercial real estate exchange, owners are required to reinvest their equity in a subsequent qualified purchase. Commercial mortgage borrowers who have properly completed 1031 Exchanges might want to tap into some of their equity shortly after a 1031 Exchange is completed via 1031 refinancing. These borrowers will usually encounter seasoning of ownership limitations from most lenders that will effectively prevent such a refinancing. If a commercial mortgage borrower wants to consider 1031 Exchange refinancing and has recently completed the 1031 Exchange, they should seek out a lender without seasoning requirements or limitations. However, there are many technical issues surrounding a 1031 Exchange and 1031 refinancing that will require commercial borrowers to consult with a qualified 1031 Exchange advisor before proceeding with refinancing of commercial 1031 Exchange properties.

* Leaning On Love: Jonathan Haynes and the former Leslie Renee Feggans wed at the bride’s parents home in Laverock, PA. A graduate of Cabrini College and Eastern College, the bride is a biologist at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. A graduate of Villanova University, the groom is a professional basketball player in Europe. They honeymooned at Sandals Resort in the Bahamas.

* God’s Greatest Gift: Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Raymond said “I do” at Union Bethel Independent Methodist Church in Birmingham, AL. The bride, the former Adrianne Denise Young, is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She is a program coordinator for the UAB Addiction Recover Program. The groom is a finance manager with Serra Chevrolet. The newlyweds honeymooned in Hawaii.

* Wedding Day Bliss: Marvin W. Armstrong and Arlene Young united as one at the Sequoia Conference Center in Buena Park, CA. The bride holds certifications from the American School of X-Ray and Southland College. She is a physical therapy/ occupational aide at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center. The groom is a graduate of ITT in Anaheim. He is a quality and technology services manager with Future Media Production. They honeymooned in Stevenson Ranch, CA.

* Ribbon In The Sky:. Derek Anthony Villavaso and Genia Micole Ferdinand married at St. John Baptist in New Orleans, LA. The bride, a graduate of Xavier University, works in a health profession. The bridegroom, a graduate of Dillard University, is coowner of Exclusive Vocational Services. He is also co-owner of Hue Mono Sports Incorporated in New Orleans. Europe was the exciting honeymoon spot.

* Fantasy Island: Michelle Rene Ross became the wife of Paul Brian Humphries at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. The happy bride, a graduate of Hampton University, is a computer specialist with the Department of Defense. The proud groom currently is employed by the Washington, D.C., government. The loving twosome enjoyed a romancefilled honeymoon in Hawaii.

* Fifty Blessed Years: Dr. and Mrs. Vanester Pugh commemorated five decades of bliss with family and friends at the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA. They both are retired from the Atlanta Public School System where Mrs. Mary C. Pugh was a teacher and Dr. Pugh was an administrator. They are the parents of one daughter, Vanessa Pugh Lawrence, and the grandparents of one, Kyndal Nicole.

ANY man who opens “country pubs” in the back of his aircraft while turning the aisles into fashion-show catwalks is either raving mad…or a genius.

As Air Jamaica’s chairman, Gordon “Butch” Stewart also runs a string of luxury resorts, a national newspaper and a company which builds and services most of his sun-kissed homeland’s refrigerators, you can work out which for yourself.

Today, the Caribbean’s answer to Richard Branson is better known in his native Jamaica than its Prime Minister. How many hotels in Britain can wheel out government ministers for the opening of a new annexe or an impressive refurbishment? Sandals can - and did - in the Bahamas.

The holiday starts the minute you board the plane. The usual meals, feature films and in-flight radio are not enough for Butch. As soon as the dinner is cleared away, the intercom announces: “All passengers are welcome to use the country bar which is set up at the rear galley for a drink or snack and mix with other passengers in a pub atmosphere.”

Butch’s resorts are equally original. I stayed at three: Sandals Royal Jamaican near Montego Bay, Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort and Spa near Nassau and the Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort and Spa in Providenciales.

His slogan is “Love Is All You Need.” And it really is…because at these resorts everything is all-inclusive.

Water skiing, scuba diving, snorkelling, swimming with stingrays and dolphins, you can do the lot…and it’s all on the house.

The Sandals resorts are for couples only and vary greatly in style.

The relaxed Royal Jamaican covers 17 acres, has 190 apartments and its own island restaurant. The five-star Royal Bahamian is Butch’s first all- inclusive resort in the Bahamas and has a selection of pubs and restaurants, as well as one of the best health spas in the West Indies.

Butch’s Beaches resort on the British Crown Colony of Turks and Caicos opened last year. Set on 12 miles of pristine white beach, the resort has 200 spacious rooms, of which 34 are villa suites with dramatic views of the Caribbean.

As well as Sandals-type attractions for adults (including the best scuba in the world after the Great Barrier Reef), Beaches has a computer games centre and a children’s camp, and plans are in the pipeline for a major pirate ship theme park.

The man who created the perfect all-inclusive holidays for adults is confident his Beaches resorts will do the same for children.

And as his countless projects in the past have proved, he is probably right. Because Butch Stewart has developed the knack of taking the comfort and quality service of European hotels and mixing them with the West Indian sense of fun.

PERHAPS it’s because we live in Milton Keynes - as far from paradise as you can get - that Jamaica seems drop-dead gorgeous.

You wake up in the morning and pull back the curtains to gaze across palm trees, beach and glorious ocean. My wife Jo and I were simply blown away day after day by the same view.

We were staying at Sandals’ resort in Negril on the far west side of Jamaica. It’s a 90-minute drive from the airport at Montego Bay along a winding coast road.

Everyone says, “Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day” - and your nice day starts as soon as you arrive. In our case, that was in the early hours of the morning but it didn’t seem to matter. There was a glass of champagne waiting, a big smile from the night manager and we were instantly made to feel at home.

That set the scene for our seven-night stay. And apart from the scenery, it is the friendly staff that stick in the mind.

Their favourite saying was “yeah man,” and that summed up their attitude to everything asked of them.

For those who have never been on an all-inclusive holiday, the name says it all. You don’t pay for your drinks or food at the time; it’s all covered in the holiday price.

Whether this is good value or not depends on how much you eat and drink, of course.

Sandals gives you a choice of four restaurants, from Kimonos - a high class Japanese-style establishment - to the healthy stir-fries at Four Cs. There’s even a late-night fast-food joint on the beach to make us Brits feel at home.

It’s also worth mentioning the lunches where you could help yourself to a huge variety of excellent dishes. That’s where the damage was done on our waistlines.

It is perfectly feasible to go from one restaurant to another having a meal in each - all in one night. But if you did that the plane wouldn’t get off on the runway on the way back and you’d look like Bernard Manning. You could also drink yourself under the table, palm trees and anything else available. Strangely the availability of all that Jamaican rum and other free booze had the opposite effect. We ended up hardly drinking… strange but true.

This particular all-inclusive holiday even means that the staff will not accept day-to-day tips. You can leave gifts, but make sure the management know. Football and rugby shirts go down well, as do toiletries for female staff.

There are bars and restaurants all along the main beach in Negril but when you are in an all-inclusive resort the temptation is to stay in.

I made an excursion to the golf course about four miles away and returned from one afternoon looking like a boiled shrimp.

The only other time we left the seclusion of the resort was to do a quick spot of shopping. You can walk along the beach and browse among small stalls selling bits and pieces to gullible tourists… like us. We returned with a lizard to hang on the wall - I kid you not - and a ship in a bottle. Don’t ask.

If you want to be more active, Sandals can provide that. If you want to chill out, that’s fine too.

You can play tennis, use the gym (ha!) and there are competitions for those who want to spend their holiday running round more than they do at home. The most exercise Jo and I managed was the 40-yard walk out of our room on to the beach. With that in mind we also had a massage in the spa. It was a tough week, believe me.

Next summer flyglobespan launches a new daily service from Glasgow to Orly airport in Paris, pictured. For the first time flyglobespan will offer regular flights to Cyprus, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria from Glasgow while Spanish capital Madrid will be available from Edinburgh. Flyglobespan will continue to fly daily to Alicante, Malaga, Palma and Barcelona from both Glasgow and Edinburgh and Faro on the Portuguese Algarve, the Czech capital Prague and Tenerife from Glasgow. The airline is also adding extra flights to Geneva from Glasgow during the winter as the route is already proving popular.

The number of Britons taking snowsport holidays last winter rose slightly to more than 1.2 million, according to the Ski Club of Great Britain, and of these, 235,000 travelled independently. Among the most-visited resorts were Val d’Isere and Meribel in France, St Anton and Lech in Austria, Verbier and Zermatt in Switzerland and Breckenridge and Vail in Colorado, USA.

* Starting Anew:. Dr. Raheem Beyah and Kali Wilson began life together as husband and wife in ceremonies at the Twin Towers in Atlanta. The bride, a graduate of Florida A&M University and Vanderbilt University Law School, is an attorney at Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy. The groom, a graduate of North Carolina A&T University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, is on faculty at the Institute and a computer network consultant. The U.S. Virgin Islands was the honeymoon spot.

* Absolute Bliss: Michele Louise Washington recently pledged her eternal love and devotion to Athum Laneski Hand during an enchanted wedding ceremony held at the Sandals Beach Resort & Spa in Negril, Jamaica. The blushing bride attended the University of Kentucky. The happy newlyweds are both employed as fabrication technicians at the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. The Hands will make their home in Warner Robins, GA.

* This Is True Love: Michael Gales joyously joined in holy matrimony with Nicole Nichelle Nash at the Union Baptist Church in Springfield, IL. The bride is a graduate of Illinois State University and a first-grade teacher. She is pursuing a master’s degree in education administration. The bridegroom is a graduate of Robert Morris College. He is a draftsman. They honeymooned in Cancun and will reside in Springfield.

* United In Devotion: Vincent C. Byrd Jr. joined as one with Dana Crampton at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef Resort in St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands. A graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Miami University, the bride is a compensation and training manager for Federated Dept. Stores corporate operations. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, the groom is a technology consultant for Accenture. They will live in Cincinnati.

* Nothing Sweeter: Erhabor Onaiwu Ighodaro tied the knot with Shannan Hanna at the Coco Plum Women’s Club in Coral Gables, FL. The bride, a graduate of Florida Memorial College and Nova Southeastern University, is an accounting coordinator. The groom, a graduate of Florida Memorial College and Saint Thomas University, is employed in the Miami Dade School System. The couple honeymooned in Brazil and will reside in Miami.

* ‘I Do’ Means Forever:. The Rev. and Mrs. John Williams of Elyria, OH, recently celebrated 50 years of blissful marriage during a surprise gathering with family and friends in Wickliffe, OH. Mrs. Willie Mae Williams serves as a missionary. Rev. Williams is a minister at International Community Baptist Church in Lorraine, OH. The Williamses are the parents of 7 and the grandparents of 10.

The term “tropical biodiversity” is more likely to conjure up images of Amazonian rain forests than Jamaican beach resorts. Yet to study the causes of species richness, we travel to Negril, home to such vacation get-aways as Sandals and Hedonism II. Like most denizens of Negril, our subjects are sun lovers; their preferred basking spots, however, are not beach towels but tree trunks. Beautiful, scaly, and found just about anywhere in Negril but on the beach itself, Jamaican anoles (lizards of the genus Anolis) are a living test case for our investigations into the workings of evolution.

Even a leisurely stroll around Negril reveals an abundance and diversity of lizards. At the bases of trees and wooden posts, two species perch head downward. One, the jamaican lined anole, prefers shadier spots, whereas the brown anole basks on fence posts out in the open. Four other species are found farther up in the trees. The two most common run and jump from branch to branch, using trunks and leaves as necessary. They have slightly different temperature preferences but mainly differ in size and color, the beautiful blue Graham’s anole being twice the weight of the smaller and paler opalescent anole. The king of the treetops, and the giant among Negril’s tree-dwelling anoles, is the fifteen-inch-long “green guana,” as the locals call it. This fearless, lime-colored lizard supplements its diet of insects with small vertebrates, including other anoles. The anole that is possibly the most numerous is also the most rarely seen. A cautious demeanor and camouflage markings make the Valencienne’s anole difficult to spot as it creeps along narrow branches and twigs in search of hidden prey. This short-legged lizard is not a sprinter or leaper; it eludes predators by avoiding detection in the first place.

Each of these six species is adapted to its own ecological niche, in particular to the surface on which it lives and moves. The stubby legs of Valencienne’s anole, for example, may not give the animal speed but are well suited for maintaining balance on narrow twigs. In contrast, anoles that spend their lives closer to the ground have extremely long hind limbs that provide great sprinting and jumping capabilities (as we determined in the field, using a portable lizard racetrack and long-jump pit). These lizards sit motionless for long periods, their athletic prowess held in check as they scan the ground surrounding their perch. When an unwary insect wanders within range, the lizards dart out to capture a meal.

Anoles have also adapted to life in the trees by evolving adhesive toe pads, like those of their cousins the geckos. These pads, which are covered by millions of microscopic, hairlike structures, allow lizards to cling to the smooth and irregular surfaces of leaves and narrow branches. Species that dwell high in the trees have a greater need to maintain their grip; they generally have more well-developed toe pads than do species that live closer to the ground.

This array of anoles constitutes a classic case of adaptive radiation, a common phenomenon on islands in which the first species to arrive, finding a realm of untapped ecological niches, gives rise to a diversity of descendant species, each adapted to use a different part of the environment. The most famous case of adaptive radiation is that of Darwin’s finches, in the Galapagos Islands, but there are many others, including Hawaiian honeycreepers and East African Rift lake cichlids.

The adaptive radiation of Caribbean anoles, however, is exceptional in two regards. First, Caribbean anoles have experienced not one but four adaptive radiations, by diversifying independently on each island of the Greater Antilles — Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola (which encompasses the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Second, and more surprisingly, these independent radiations have produced remarkably similar sets of species on each island (see table at left). For example, the slender, twig-hugging Valencienne’s anole lives on Jamaica, but each of the other islands hosts a species extremely similar in build and coloration that uses the same habitats and behaves in much the same way. Each of the four islands also has at least one long-legged species that perches motionless near the ground using a sit-and-wait foraging strategy to ambush prey; a shorter-limbed arboreal species with large toe pads, which moves throughout the trees and has the ability to change colors dramatically (from green or blue to brown); and a large species that lives high in the crown of trees. Although such convergent evolution is a widespread phenomenon in both the animal and plant kingdoms, convergence of entire sets of adaptive radiations has rarely been documented — and never before in quadruplicate.

The outcomes of the independent radiations, however, have not been identical. Cuba and Hispaniola, but not Jamaica and Puerto Rico, host a tree-trunk specialist with a flattened body, while Cuba alone has a large anole that lives near streams, catches fish, and runs across water to escape predators, much like the Central American basilisk lizard. Similarly, in Hispaniola, a small anole inhabits the leaf litter of mountainous rain forests; the unusual structure of its vertebrae may be an adaptation for hopping. All four Greater Antillean islands have stream and rain forest habitats, so the existence of only a single stream specialist and a single leaf-litter specialist is a mystery. Further investigation may eventually reveal why certain ecological niches are adapted to repeatedly while others are not.

Free travel blogs are everywhere at the moment. It seems that travel communities are springing up all over the web.

You can see why this is, if like me you live in the UK, to say the weather in not good is an understatement. The winters seem to be getting longer, and the summers shorter.

As I write this article the rain is falling and the clouds are here. If only I was lying on a nice beach somewhere, with the sun on my back.

There could be an simple answer to this misery, join a travel community. Travel communities are basically people that are interested in travel, sharing their travel experiences with others. You can escape to wherever you want to, just by reading some ones travel blog. Or by creating your own travel blog you can relive the memories of your latest trip, or dream about a new travel destination you have yet to visit.

I myself have a travel blog, and its a real treat to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and escape to a far off destination on my blog. You can lose yourself in the Kasbahs of Morocco, or dance the night away in the carnivals of Rio. Or maybe just sip a cocktail or two by the pool in Florida. The choice is yours.