As the presidential election appears to be concluded, commercial
real estate investors are now strategizing for the future impacts of new
taxation policies under a different administration. It is worth prefacing this
article with the fact that these changes / proposals are all preliminary at
this point, as there are many factors that will ultimately determine whether or
not these become a reality. That being said, it can greatly benefit investors
to be proactive in re-evaluating their investment strategies under increased
taxation policies.There are three primary proposed changes to the tax law that
would affect CRE investors:Raising capital gains from 20% to ordinary...
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This article appeared in the November 2020 Issue of the
Colorado Real Estate Journal's Multifamily Properties QuarterlyThere has never been a better time to be a commercial real
estate borrower. The cliché has been
repeated on a loop for the last several years, but it is still truer than ever
today. The Fed has signaled it is going
to hold short-term interest rates at near-zero for at least three more years,
and credit spreads have stabilized after spiking in the early days of the
pandemic. The net result is we are
living in a period with the lowest interest rates the team at Essex has ever
seen. [Author's Update 11/17: Since this
article was...
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Over the past decade, insurance companies have become more
active on the construction side of lending in efforts to (1) earn more yield on
their loan dollars and (2) provide early opportunities for permanent loan
business on newly-built, high quality stabilized product. As a result, many
have developed non-recourse construction and construction-to-perm lending
programs. Currently, 8-10 of our insurance company relationships are active in
this space, especially on deals with loan sizes greater than $25M.With the volatility brought by the COVID pandemic, many
insurance companies temporarily halted their construction or
construction-to-perm lending programs in efforts to...
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Essex Financial Group closed four (4) transactions totaling $23 million in the final weeks of July.
The loans financed a mix of asset types, including industrial, multifamily, and
office. Since the initial shock of COVID, Essex has seen insurance companies
adapt to the current environment, resulting in an uptick in lending activity in
the last few months. A summary of the four transactions is as follows:Summit at CTC II - Essex
arranged a $5,200,000 permanent loan on a newly constructed 41,000 square foot
Class A industrial building in the Colorado Technology Center (CTC). The new
loan refinanced the existing construction loan and was placed with a national
life insura...
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Activity in the capital markets has significantly increased as we
near the end of summer and as lenders and borrowers settle in to a “new
normal”. Lenders still have a strong
demand for commercial mortgages and are actively lending on all major property
types. Most of the activity has come from refinance requests as property owners
seek to capitalize on interest rates that have moved lower since the start of
the pandemic. Competition for mortgages
is increasing, and borrowers are set to reap the benefits.
The team at Essex has been actively marketing a variety of new
loan requests in recent weeks, and has identified the following trends:
Multif...
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This article appeared in the August 2020 issue of the Colorado Real Estate Journal's Retail Properties Quarterly https://crej.com/current-issues-and-archives/As the coronavirus pandemic enters
its sixth month and with no signs of abating, retail property owners are facing
unprecedented challenges on multiple levels. For those retail owners unable to
pay their existing commercial mortgages or those that are facing an upcoming
loan maturity, these challenges are especially acute. While the pandemic and
its associated government and public health response has dramatically changed
consumer behaviors, what hasn’t changed is the importance of strong lender
relation...
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The past 4 months have changed life as we know it. In our personal lives as well as in our professional lives, we’ve all had to make changes and adjustments to adapt to this unexpected global pandemic. And while it hasn’t been easy for us at Essex Financial Group, it has pushed us to re-emphasize our service-oriented approach to business. As with most companies, the beginning of the pandemic meant shifting to working-from-home with the hope that it would be over in a few short weeks. After a couple of weeks of retail businesses being shut down, the calls started coming in. “My tenants aren’t sure they will be able to pay rent.” “Will my lender approve this lease modificat...
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[Denver, June 29th, 2020]– Essex Financial Group (“Essex”)
has secured $7,800,000 in financing for the Wheeler Block Building, a 33,125
square foot office building located in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver. Essex
worked on behalf of the borrower, Centre Point Properties, to secure the 7-year,
fixed-rate non-recourse loan. Constructed
in 1892 and renovated in 2008, the Wheeler Block Building is a highly desirable
small tenant office building and is a designated historic landmark of the City
and County of Denver. The Property is currently 97.1% occupied by 23 tenants. The
Building is brick and timber construction with historic architecture, and has
an open, m...
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