WHOEVER COINED THE TERM "SUMMER slowdown" certainly hasn't seen a summer like this one. The past few months have been eventful, to say the least, between billion-dollar property acquisitions, game-changing mergers and significant executive appointments.

Recently, for instance, Realty Income Corp. revealed its intentions to buy American Realty Capital Trust Inc. in a deal valued at $2.95 billion; Health Care REIT Inc. agreed to buy Sunrise Senior Living Inc. in a $1.9-billion acquisition; Walker & Dunlop plans to pay $220 million for CWCapital; and M&T Bank Corp. became one of the larger community banking franchises in the eastern US when it acquired Hudson City Bancorp and its 97 New Jersey branches in a $3.7-billion merger.

On the single-property side, just a sampling of the deals that took place this summer tops the $1-billion mark. Union Investment Realty of Germany bought San Francisco's 555 Mission St. for $446.5 million from Tishman Speyer; Strategic Hotels & Resorts paid $362 million for Jumeirah Essex House in New York City; and the Rockefeller Group and Mitsubishi Estate New York reportedly paid $300 million for 50 Beale St., also in San Francisco. And portfolio deals brought in millions—just look at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's $355-million investment in seven US properties and American Campus Communities' $627-million acquisition of 15 properties from Campus Acquisitions. What's more, lenders are more than willing to provide considerable amounts of capital, albeit to the right deals that cross their desks.