U.S. called novel emerging souk for real estate

Brazil, Russia, India with China moves over. There's a new emerging souk for profitable real estate opportunities.

"Now that the meltdown has happen, the fresh emerging souk is the United States," Tom Shapiro, leader of real estate investment firm Golden Tree InSite associates, said on Tuesday at the Reuters Global Real Estate meeting in New York.

The U.S. marketable real estate crash, in which price are down more than 20 percent and are predictable to fall 40 percent to 50 percent, has produced a landscape of what is predictable to be a land of vast chance for those with cash.

"I think there's going to be the finest opportunity to make currency in the previous 20 years in real estate in the U.S.," Shapiro supposed.

Golden Tree InSite stopped invests in U.S. real estate in early on 2006 and has paying attention most of its attention with cash on Brazil, where it has invests in housing and organization properties.

But with about a $1 billion to utilize, it is poised to go back to the U.S. market and take benefit of the right projects that need or will require money when they come up petite.

"We are now at the point now where we are considering a few very interesting entry points on convinced transactions," he said.

New York-based Golden Tree InSite is opportunistic real estate companies that invest funds raise from retirement fund and new institutional investors.

Shapiro whispered his firms not only consider location but places more weight on the merit of an entity project.

"We're more about finding the correct project in the exact location," he said. "We're not look for shotgun shots. We're look for rifle shots."

Still, Shapiro said his firms like big cities, such as Los Angeles with New York where browbeaten commercial real estate markets tend to bounce back strong.

"San Francisco at this time is an attractive interesting place to believe about since San Francisco is a much diversified economy," he said.

He also mentions residential lands as well as hotels are of note as they are bottoming out.

"There's a lot of projects, whether it be development or operating properties, or properties that need to be renovated that were done with the best of intentions but relied on increasing fundamentals, rents working and not having construction overruns," Shapiro

said.

GoldenTree InSite has not yet dedicated any finances to a new U.S. investment. It is not only evaluate what plan to invest in, but how to go into the deal -- via equity, mezzanine finance or by buying upset senior mortgages. Depending on the situation of the financing, investment could be buying at 20 cents or 30 cents on the dollar.

For U.S. investing, Golden Tree InSite is likely to put in leverage to its accessible capital however will use it carefully, Shapiro said.