The Loan Committee™

Perhaps the most aggressive financing structure (in terms of leverage) available to borrowers is Credit Tenant Lease (“CTL”) financing.  While most traditional financing structures emphasize the value of the real estate (the lenders’ collateral), CTL financing structures are based on the credit of the tenant and the structure of the lease with the real estate value being secondary.  Author: Brandon Wilhite.  Source:  Metropolitan Capital Advisors.  Learn more…

With the regional center program set to expire in September 2015, the EB-5 industry has been given new life in the form of the American Entrepreneurship and Investment Act of 2015. The Act was introduced today by Congressmen Jared Polis (CO-02) and Mark Amodei (NV-02), and is a follow-up to last year’s bill of the same name. The bill would make the regional center program permanent and allow for continued job creation and a more reliable stream of foreign capital. read entire article…  Source:  EB5 Investors

A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a real estate company that offers common shares to the public. In this way, an REIT stock is similar to any other stock that represents ownership in an operating business. But an REIT has two unique features: its primary business is managing groups of income-producing properties and it must distribute most of its profits as dividends. To qualify as an REIT with the IRS, a real estate company must agree to pay out at least 90% of its taxable profit in dividends (and fulfill additional but less important requirements). By having REIT status, a company avoids corporate income tax. A regular corporation makes a profit and pays taxes on its entire profit, and then decides how to allocate its after-tax profits between dividends and reinvestment; an REIT simply distributes all or almost all of its profits and gets to skip the taxation. read entire article… Author:  David Harper.  Source:  Investopedia.

A powerful tool for real estate developers is tax optimization. However, without a proper understanding of tax incentives, these benefits may not be utilized fully. Also, while tax incentives may be a catalyst for a development, there may still be capitalization issues faced by the developer who cannot wait for the tax incentives to come until after the completion of the project. The best solution for these problems may be through the monetization of tax credits prior to the start of the project.

Tax incentives that are able to be monetized effectively are the New Market Tax Credit, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, among others.  read entire article… Source: Metropolitan Capital Advisors.

While many variables will determine the course of US commercial real estate, here are six potential trends for 2015 based on the current outlook. read entire article… Authors: Peter Burley and David Lynn.  Source:  URBANLAND

Pompano Beach-based Stonegate Bank’s acquisition of Dania Beach-based Community Bank of Broward was completed last Thursday.  Shareholders of both companies approved the move in mid-December, following an August deal made by Stonegate to purchase Community Bank for $61.2 million. read entire article… Author: Nina Lincoff.  Source:  South Florida Business Journal

Institutional real estate investors paid record breaking prices to acquire South Florida’s most sought after trophy buildings in the past year. In some cases, sellers made more than a 50 percent profit as buyers continued to pay premium rates per square foot of commercial property. Click HERE to see the top 10 building sales for 2014.  Source:  The Real Deal.

The Internal Revenue Service today issued guidance clarifying the impact a 2014 individual retirement arrangement (IRA) rollover has on the one-per-year limit imposed by the Internal Revenue Code on tax-free rollovers between IRAs. The change in the application of the one-per-year limit reflects an interpretation by the U.S. Tax Court in a January 2014 decision applying the limit to preclude an individual from making more than one tax-free rollover in any one-year period, even if the rollovers involve different IRAs. Before 2015, the one-per-year limit applies only on an IRA-by-IRA basis (that is, only to rollovers involving the same IRAs). Beginning in 2015, the limit will apply by aggregating all of an individual’s IRAs, effectively treating them as if they were one IRA for purposes of applying the limit.  read entire article…  Source:  IRS