Company History

I was re-elected to the Commercial Board of Governors of MISMO for another two-year term, so I will remain active in MISMO at least through 2013. MISMO, which stands for the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organizations (www.mismo.org), is a standard-making body run by MERS and owned by the MBA.

I have been active in MISMO because I believe commercial real estate deals should have a standard XML data set that is comprehensive enough to understand and value the deal.

Keep reading »

I’m talking about the Backshop .NET 3.5 release, Regulation AB, two years of blogging, The A Yacht and summer family trips.

Keep reading »

The redesigned Backshop site reveals the depth and power of our industry-leading commercial real estate enterprise software.

We are especially proud of the new Software Tour, which combines screen shots with descriptions of functionality to show how Backshop can aid loan origination, asset management and fund management.

Check out the new www.backshop.com

New Backshop home page.

Software Tour > Pipeline Management

— — —

Jim Flaherty is CEO of CMBS.com and the creator of the Backshop loan origination system. He is a trained credit professional with experience installing enterprise underwriting systems for commercial real estate lenders, rating agencies and investors.

www.cmbs.com

www.backshop.com

I am just back from our 2009 Backshop user conference in New York. Bank of America hosted it in a beautiful board room overlooking Bryant Park. About 10 clients invested the day with us to go over our accomplishments from last year and help set priorities for next year.

Keep reading »

I just finished up two days attending the Dealmakers Summit sponsored by Institutional Real Estate. It was held in San Diego and featured senior players primarily from the equity side of the business — owners, pension fund advisors, brokers, and consultants.

The mood was generally pessimistic, especially after hearing from the economists (CRE fundamentals would continue to deteriorate) and the transaction brokers (sales volume down 95% from the peak). However, there were at least a few people who thought “the bottom” would hit in 2010 with transaction volumes picking up in the second half. But, most thought the real estate markets would be dead through next year, would have some activity in 2011 and a bottom being found in 2012.

Keep reading »