5. Goldman forecasts Funds From Operations (FFO) “growth” for their REITs coverage to be negative 20% this year and negative 9% next year. I'll add that beyond that, going into 2012-2013 and the teeth of the refinancing crunch, it's not unreasonable that there won’t be FFO growth, or distributable cash for years to come, rendering all investments in the last 3-5 years as worthless from a ROIC standpoint, or flat out losses.

6. Conversely, insurance companies and other institutional lenders that have kept their noses clean and have cash available for lending may find very attractive long-term opportunities.

7. The Goldman research note calls for 20-30% down year for REIT stocks. As a point of reference, the iShares DJ Real Estate (IYR) closed Friday at $32.38, down approximately 13% YTD.

8. Until the REITs can rebuild equity and their portfolios with properties that have positive ROIC using historical levels and costs of debt, the entire REIT class is likely to be dead money, and this process could take many many years.

9. And if anyone thinks that extending the TALF program to CRE financing is a solution to the REITs’ problems, careful what you wish for: REITs exist to generate fees for the REITs; the returns to investors are an unpleasant side effect of having to tap capital so that the REITs can generate their fees. Put the REITs' managements under the same scrutiny as banks and investment firms’, and the very reasons for REITs to exist will disappear.

At the same time, I’ll grant REITs this much: there's enough pork in the REITs' fees structures that if they chose to, they could prop up FFOs by slashing fees.

10. At the risk of being redundantly redundant, the ProShares Ultrashort Real Estate (SRS) remain an excellent trading vehicle to short CRE, and just as bad an investment tool to achieve that purpose. I continue to trade the former, but I've now started a short position in the IYR, looking for it to bleed slowly for an extended period of time.