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...

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...

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...

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...