This time last year we were in the brunt of the crash, wondering when we would see the end of the Great Recession. Commercial Property lending was largely shut down.
August 2009, the Newmark team joined many local businesses to run, jog, walk in the annual JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge; a 5K race around the San Francisco Embarcadero. We didn't expect to win alongside teams from Pixar, Wells Fargo, HP, Cisco and other Bay Area legends... but we were sure to have fun.
Sporting T-shirts that read "Goodyear? Not! But rising above!", our goal was simple; enjoy the day and stay in the race...
Sporting T-shirts that read "Goodyear? Not! But rising above!", our goal was simple; enjoy the day and stay in the race...
Here we are a year later, running in the 2010 5K Challenge which benefited the YMCA Kids for Camp Fund. It was a cold San Francisco summer evening as we made our way along the waterfront course past AT&T Park, but the Newmark team was running well and feeling optimistic.
The theme for the event was "green" and our Newmark team returned with T-shirts bearing a smiling cartoon frog, who is wearing Newmark logo running shorts and the mantra "Leaping ahead!".
We know many of our borrower and some of our lender friends felt their lives were turned upside down during the crash. Commercial real estate is still struggling to recover. Hanging over us even now is the threat of a second recession that some economists give a 50-50 probability.