Real-estate stocks are poised to end the year with gains that are twice as large as the broader stock market, the second year in a row that REITs outperformed the major stock indexes.

REITs, as measured by the Dow Jones All REIT index, were up 27% as of Tuesday’s close. While that is a smaller gain than last year, when REITs posted gains of 28.5%, the 2010 results handily beat the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, up 11% as of Monday’s closing and Standard & Poor’s 500 index, up 12.86%.

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With Florida’s budget already in a deep hole, state lawmakers got another round of sobering news Monday with analysts reporting that public schools are poised for their largest enrollment spike in six years.

Another 16,946 students are expected to crowd Florida classrooms next fall, increasing the demand for dwindling dollars even as legislators struggle to close a spending gap likely to top $3 billion. The enrollment jump marks the third consecutive year of rising student counts, and could demand an additional $115.8 million in classroom dollars, based on current funding levels.

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Reversing two months of increasing commercial real estate prices, all three of CoStar’s “headline” Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices decreased in October, continuing the recent see-saw performance of commercial real estate pricing, according to CoStar Group’s newly released Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices (CCRSI).

CoStar’s national all property type index declined 3.88% during October, giving back its 3.07% gain in September. The index representing all commercial properties and the broadest industry measure of commercial real estate transaction pricing, slipped to its lowest point since the index peaked in February of 2008. While still decreasing, the rate decline has begun to slow considerably. Since June of 2009 the rate decline has been reduced by half.

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The real-estate firms managing the swelling volume of distressed commercial mortgages that were sliced and diced on Wall Street are blazing new trails as they pick up the pace of working through bad loans.

The firms, known as special servicers, are dealing with an influx of souring loans backed by commercial-mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS: a total of $90.9 billion as of the end of September, compared with $73.8 billion at the end of last year, according to credit-rating firm Fitch Ratings. But the pace at which those loans have been resolved has picked up at an even faster rate, with $27.9 billion recovered by special servicers from bad loans in the third quarter, compared with $8.9 billion in the first quarter, according to Fitch.

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Battered fund manager Equastone has been spending much of its time these days struggling to shore up the finances of many of its top-of-the-market acquisitions.

But its sale of New Orleans’ Pan-American Life Center building for about $65 million represents a success story for the firm and its new chief executive, Kirk Cypel. One year ago, Equastone didn’t have the cash to pay off a $50 million mortgage that was coming due and buyer interest was negligible.

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Even though commercial real estate [CRE] asset quality continues to improve gradually on bank’s books across the country, it has not translated into additional lending for commercial real estate. In fact, new lending continues to slide in all categories with the exception of multifamily.

New lending from banks on multifamily projects has increased by about $4 billion year to date. Outside of that category, lending activity continues at slightly declining levels for nonresidential properties and continues to fall off sharply for construction and development projects.

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The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has shifted the North American assets of its CalEast Global Logistics LLC, valued at $1.9 billion, to GI Partners. In addition, it has transitioned its European industrial assets, valued at approximately $60 million, to RREEF.

CalEast was previously managed by LaSalle Investment Management.

CalEast owns and operates industrial, logistics and infrastructure-oriented real estate, including warehouses, light assembly, distribution centers, truck terminals, intermodal centers, and air cargo facilities throughout the United States and Canada. CalEast entities include CenterPoint Properties Trust, joint ventures with Aeroterm and North American Truck Terminals, and numerous development joint ventures. In total, CalEast platforms own and operate over 47 million square feet of industrial real estate and logistics infrastructure.

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