From today’s Examiner, Attention would-be developers: Building a green project can speed up the permitting process. The Department of Building Inspection, the city agency that issues the necessary permits for all new construction and remodeling, has pledged to give priority to projects that meet national environmental standards. The directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office is designed to encourage environmentally friendly development, such as buildings that make use of recycled or reclaimed materials, nontoxic paints or carpets made of nonsynthetic materials. …

So much is being written about how high the inventory levels have risen in San Francisco in the past 8 months, and even more dramatically in the past four weeks. And many media outlets would have you, the casual observer, believe that this is a sign of a coming apocalypse. As you might imagine, I just don’t believe that. And why not? Because in my eight year career in this town, I have never seen so many crappy (or overpriced) …

From today’s Examiner, The latest blueprints for Treasure and Yerba Buena islands include a fifth high-rise residential tower, 6,000 apartments and condominiums, three ferries and an aggressive incentive plan to get people out of their cars and onto ferries and buses. A prior proposal, announced late last year, called for 5,500 housing units, four towers of at least 30 stories and one less ferry to shuttle residents to San Francisco. “We need a critical mass of people living on the …

Looks like nothing more than a canned press release written by Circle Bank, but they ran it in the SF Business Times, so I’ll pass it on… Circle Bank of Novato has created a series of unique loan products to help finance residential and commercial real estate throughout the Bay Area. The products include a deferred payment program, fractional tenant-in-common loans for both residential and commercial property and a real estate retirement program that extends loans for investment real estate …

From today’s San Francisco Business Times, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. is snapping up a Mission Street parcel for $5.5 million and plans to develop 80 units of affordable family housing there. The 15,000-square-foot site, 1036-1040 Mission St., sits between Sixth and Seventh streets, a long-depressed part of the Mid-Market neighborhood that has seen considerable investment over the past two years. It was owned by Skyline Investments, a company owned by the Lembi family, which is being sued by the city …