Greenspan Says Rates Can't Stay This Low

The low interest rates of recent years cannot go on indefinitely, according to Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board."Enjoy while you can -- it's been terrific," he told attendees at the annual convention of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association in New York, about the large amounts of money that have been flowing into the commercial real estate sector. He said he expects that "we are somewhere in the range of the turning point" for interest rates, which would also cause capitalization rates to go up and property valuations to suffer. As for whether this is the beginning of a sustained rise in the 10-year Treasury note yield, Mr. Greenspan said a good part of the rise stems from an awareness that productivity is getting squeezed and that, at a minimum, it is a cyclical upturn in yield. However, "it is perfectly conceivable that it goes down again," he added. The low-interest-rate environment that has characterized the last few years came about as a result of a high level of savings in the developing world after the end of the Cold War, according to Mr. Greenspan. The level of savings in developing countries rose with productivity gains, obtained with the help of technology developed in the West, and he does not see this going on indefinitely.