A few years ago, AT&T became an active player in the real estate market – not as a buyer but as a seller. The telecommunications giant sold its office towers in a number of cities, including Dallas, Cleveland and Chicago, but has continued to occupy and control these buildings.

Deutsche Bank sold its headquarters on Wall Street, left, to the Paramount Group in 2007 in a $1.2 billion, 15-year deal.

AT&T completed sale-leasebacks on several of its buildings, including its 42-story tower in St. Louis.

Taking advantage of a healthy market for so-called sale-leaseback transactions allowed the company to free as much as $1.5 billion, according to one broker’s estimate. Among the properties sold were the 42-story office tower at 909 Chestnut Street in St. Louis and the 47-story building at 675 West Peachtree Street in Atlanta, which AT&T had acquired in its merger with BellSouth.

The sale-leasebacks were “part of a strategy to get out of the real estate business, which is not a core business or interest of our company,” said an AT&T spokesman, Fletcher Cook.

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The insurance industry said it could lower some rates if allowed to consider gender when evaluating risk, advocating yet another attempt to repeal Montana’s unique “unisex” insurance law.

Supporters of the old law said it isn’t fair to establish different rates based upon gender, and said the old anti-discrimination law has worked well for years.

A state Senate panel is looking at the new plan to repeal Montana’s 25-year-old anti-gender discrimination law. It bans the use of gender in establishing rates on everything from car insurance to life insurance.

“It seems like we are about the last state of all 50 holding onto this so-called unisex insurance provision,” said Sen. Gary Perry, R-Manhattan. “And because of that it has created higher rates and less opportunity to have more insurance companies and policies provided for Montana citizens.”

Insurance agents told the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs committee that some insurance companies aren’t willing to establish separate rates for such a small state — so everyone just gets charged more.

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The financial regulator plans to expand a housing-based pension plan, or reverse mortgage, to help more senior citizens lead stable lives after retirement and help the economy.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said it is considering easing conditions for the reverse mortgage subscription. Currently, those aged 65 or older with only one home worth 900 million won or less can provide their home as collateral to the Korea Housing Finance Corp. (KHFC) or local banks for monthly payment for the rest of their lives.

The commission is considering expanding the program to people aged 60 or 55.

It is also planning to increase the sum subscribers get for the rest of their lives to over 500 million won. Currently, subscribers can get only up to 300 million won in reverse mortgages.

The program was introduced in July 2007, modeled after the U.S. system, but attracted only 515 subscribers in 2007 and 695 last year. The regulator concluded that strict conditions, including age, made the program less popular.

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Vacancies rise, tenants seek deals 

RALEIGH — Economic malaise has forced companies to slash jobs, killing demand for new offices, warehouses and other kinds of commercial real estate. And so once again Triangle landlords, who spent the early 2000s digging out of a glut following the technology bust, confront mounting distress.

“The commercial real estate market here faces its worst year” since the early 1990s, said Jimmy Barnes, president of NAI Carolantic Realty, a Raleigh real estate services firm.

It was the basic theme of Carolantic’s 24th annual Triangle Commercial Real Estate Conference at the RBC Center. The mood of Thursday’s event — somewhat somber, faintly hopeful — illustrated how quickly the region’s go-go pace has idled from a year ago, when the nation’s economic ills began to creep into a region that even the most guarded optimists believed was protected.

In the past few years, as companies expanded in or flocked to the Triangle, landlords have held the cards. On Thursday, Barnes spelled out the new reality: “It’s clearly a tenants’ and buyers’ market.”

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Calling for a “new era of responsibility” in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama reminded us that there are no limits to “what free men and women can achieve.” Indeed. America achieved greatness as the can-do society. This is, after all, the country of Thomas Paine and barn raisings, of Grange halls and Google. Other countries shared, at least in part, our political freedoms, but America had something different — a belief in the power of each individual. President Obama’s clarion call of self-determination — “Yes We Can” — hearkens back to the core of our culture.

But there’s a threshold problem for our new president. Americans don’t feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. All around us are warnings and legal risks. The modern credo is not “Yes We Can” but “No You Can’t.” Our sense of powerlessness is pervasive. Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors say they wouldn’t advise their children to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can’t even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.

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Retirees wanting to use their home as equity to fund their lifestyle could find it harder to obtain reverse mortgages as firms feel the punch of the credit crunch.

Financial products research firm Canstar Cannex said eight reverse mortgage lenders have stopped offering new loans in the past six months.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing reverse mortgages fall victim to the funding shortfalls financial institutions are currently experiencing,” senior financial analyst Harry Senlitonga said.

“Many lenders are suspending products from the market but are likely to reinstate those products when financial times improve.”

Mr Senlitonga said a reverse mortgage was a loan against a person’s home that is not repaid until the owner dies.

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Historically low interest rates that sparked a refinancing boom late last year should continue through the first half of 2009, banking experts said.

“I do expect the environment of ultra-low mortgage rates to persist at least through the first half of 2009,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com. “This will aid both homeowners looking to refinance as well as prospective homebuyers.”

With rates running at historic lows of 5 percent or below, Anne Arundel County mortgage brokers and bank officials said they have been inundated with refinancing requests as consumers try to shave down mortgage payments in a recession.

For example, George Matthews, owner of A-1 Mortgage in Annapolis, said he’s currently looking at 45 applications right now.

“I have more loans in front of me than I have ever had in my career,” he said.

Scott Kirkley, executive vice president at Severn Savings Bank, estimated the bank has received at least 30 phone calls inquiring about the low rates.

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For the second time in two months, California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is being accused by his predecessor, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, of proposing regulation changes that will weaken consumer protections.

The latest dispute involves Poizner’s proposal to roll back regulations that prohibit insurers from reducing group disability insurance benefits to account for pensions, workers’ compensation payments or wages that the policyholder might receive.

Poizner, a Republican who succeeded Garamendi as California’s chief insurance regulator in January 2007, said the regulations are unnecessary. He maintains the insurance commissioner already has the authority under state and federal law to ban insurers from including so-called offset clauses that reduce benefits in disability policies.

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Mortgage rates that fell to historic lows this week are triggering more homeowner interest in refinancing and more inquiries from would-be buyers, Rochester-area real estate brokers said.

The national average on a 30-year fixed-rate loan slipped below 5 percent, to 4.96 percent, for the first time since the mortgage company Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

Chuck Hilbert, president of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors, said he expects to see the local market pick up.

“We hit bottom in 2008,” he said. “Now we’ll see a continual rise.”

There were signs of an upturn in December, according to figures the association released Friday. After sales plunged 29 percent in November from a year earlier, they rebounded to post a slight year-over-year gain in December.

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California’s system for providing jobless benefits is quickly running out of money even as state government scrambles to keep up with the highest level of unemployment in almost 15 years.

Meanwhile, other state services for the jobless are stretched thin as the state’s unemployment rate rose in November to 8.4%, up from 8.2% the month before.

Millions of calls to state unemployment insurance processing centers continue to go unanswered, a problem first reported by The Times in April. A 30-year-old computer system is overloaded, and stressed clerks are swamped by backlogged applications.

California is not alone in dealing with an unprecedented jump in the number of applications for unemployment benefits. With U.S. unemployment at 7.2%, at least 10 other states report strains on computer and telephone networks. Computers recently crashed for short periods in hard-hit New York, North Carolina and Ohio.

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