The Loan Committee™

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.

On December 18th from 9:00AM to 5:00PM, the CCIM East Coast District Chapter will hold their “Polishing the Pro III” workshop aka “Tools for Making More Money in Your Market”.  Gary Ralston, CCIM, SIOR, CPM, CRE, SLS, CDP, CRX , a senior CCIM instructor and a member of the Board of Directors of CCIM Institute and CCIM Technologies, Inc., is the course instructor.  The course will be held in West Palm Beach at 1 Harvard Circle and lunch is included.  The cost is $145.00 for CCIM members and $195.00 for non-members.  REGISTER HERE!

Don’t miss the annual CFA Florida and TMA Florida Holiday Extravaganza, which is being held today, December 3rd from 6PM to 8PM at the Lauderdale Yacht Club.  Loan Committee members can attend at the member rate of $75.00.  Register HERE  and don’t forget to mention that you are a member of The Loan Committee in order to get the reduced rate!