Real Estate Roundtable Spent $780K Lobbying Fed

The delinquency rate on commercial property loans pooled together into investments—estimated at around $750 billion—hit nearly 3 percent in the second quarter, almost tripling from where it was at the end of last year, according to Reis Inc. The Real Estate Roundtable, which represents commercial property owners, has responded to the U.S. commercial real estate market's worst crisis in two decades by spending $780,000 in the second quarter on lobbying for federal assistance for the troubled industry.

A July filing with the Senate's public records office reveals that the Real Estate Roundtable spent the money lobbying on the Federal Reserve's lending program for the commercial real estate industry and other issues dealing with the credit crunch and federal rescues of the financial sector. The group has spent $1.5 million so far this year on lobbying lawmakers; the Fed; the U.S. Departments of Energy, Labor, Commerce, and Treasury; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Securities and Exchange Commission.