MIAMI-The European debt crisis. Social unrest in the Middle East. Legislative gridlock in the US. Questions about the impact and timing of GSE reform. The availability of credit, or lack thereof. The continued housing foreclosures. Slow job growth.

2013 looks a lot like 2012. Some are calling it Groundhog Day.

“We have the same global challenges as last year, but with a few more industry specifics,” says Dennis Bernard, a partner at Strategic Alliance Mortgage and founder and president of the Bernard Financial Group in Southfield, MI. “In the hunt for yield and return, we have a plethora of lenders seeking to place mortgages while still having a limited amount of financeable commercial real estate. Will this cause a quickening of overheated lending practices that have haunted us in the past? How strange is it to actually wonder about that after what we have just been through?”