Originally published in Shopping Center Business
 
Today, with many major malls and community shopping centers owned by insurance companies, pension funds, foundations, institutions and foreigners, the current real estate depression is causing a new kind of consternation.  Up until recently, ownership meant increasing income, full occupancy, strong department stores, and rising values; a gold-platted investment. 
 
Leveraged buyouts of department stores, in the later '80s; a major recession, significant overbuilding, the savings and loan disaster and consumer frugality, resulted in significant problems to the industry.  These problems are reflected in lower occupancy, declining overage rentals, store failures, slower rent payments, vacant department stores, and most importantly, lower real estate values.  Where have all those guarantees, foreign buyers and rosy computer-generated income projections gone?