Southeast Feature Archive

Lending Environment Still Rocky Due to Pandemic, Say Panelists at InterFace Carolinas

by Alex Tostado October 8, 2020

The lending environment for commercial real estate has started to bounce back in recent months, but there is still hesitation to close deals across most property sectors. There are some attractive opportunities for lenders in today’s climate, such as multifamily and grocery-anchored retail. That was the sentiment expressed during the virtual InterFace Carolinas panel, titled “Capital Markets Update: When and What will Unfreeze the Lending and Financing Environment?” France Media Inc.’s InterFace Conference Group and Southeast Real Estate Business hosted the event Thursday, Oct. 1. Before the coronavirus pandemic caused a nationwide shutdown, the lending environment was the most competitive it had been in recent memory, according to Aaron Derby, managing director at Benefit Street Partners. “The world went from a competitive market to a shutdown overnight,” said Derby. “Capital markets are very temperamental.” Joining Derby on the panel was Hugh Allen, senior vice president and commercial real estate regional director for TD Bank; Steve Clikas, vice president of investments at Protective Life Insurance Co.; Preslava Kovatchevska, director multifamily production and sales at Freddie Mac; and panel moderator Matthew Rocco, president and national production manager for Grandbridge. CMBS market rebounding Derby says that while his firm continued lending in April …

October 8, 2020

Acquisitions Features Georgia Leasing Activity Southeast Southeast Feature Archive

Sale-Leasebacks are a Popular Choice for Cash-Strapped Companies During the Pandemic, Says Stonemont’s Berryhill

by John Nelson September 25, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced commercial real estate owners to explore every possible avenue to raise funds, and one of the more popular transactional methods to secure capital in recent months has proven to be sale-leasebacks. Jeff Berryhill, principal of Stonemont Financial Group, says that companies that have traditionally owned their real estate are turning to sale-leasebacks because it mimics many aspects of ownership, such as long-term control of the asset. “During recessionary times or periods of extreme capital markets volatility, a sale-leaseback can appear more attractive to companies that historically owned real estate,” says Berryhill. “However, leasing real estate has always been appealing to both large and small companies, and strong and weak credit profiles.” According to research from Real Capital Analytics (RCA), sale-leaseback deals accounted for 5 percent of all investment sales in the U.S. industrial, office and retail transactions in the second quarter. For the previous three quarters, sale-leasebacks accounted for 2 percent of investment sales in those sectors for deals $2.5 million and greater. Recent sale-leaseback deals include Jervey Eye Group selling and leasing back a portfolio of medical office facilities in Upstate South Carolina; Crash Champions selling a portfolio of auto body shops in metro …

September 25, 2020

District of Columbia Features Loans Multifamily Southeast Southeast Feature Archive

US Multifamily Originations to Decline 20 to 41 Percent in 2020, Says Freddie Mac

by John Nelson August 4, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its midyear multifamily outlook report, Freddie Mac predicts U.S. multifamily loan originations will drop severely for all of 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the big blow the virus has dealt the U.S. economy. The gross domestic product from April to June plunged 32.9 percent on an annualized basis, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. The government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) is projecting that loan volume will decrease 20 to 41 percent across the multifamily sector this year compared with the total dollar amount of loans closed by lenders in 2019, which Freddie Mac estimates was $374 billion. Heading into this year, Freddie Mac expected that loan originations would increase 5 percent in 2020 to $390 billion. Depending on the overall strength of the U.S. recovery and the further spread of COVID-19, Freddie Mac outlined two scenarios for how the year will play out. The more optimistic scenario calls for the unemployment rate to fall just below 8 percent by the end of the year. The U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 11.1 percent at the end of June, will be updated Friday when the Department of Labor releases the nonfarm payroll employment report for July. …

August 4, 2020

Features Multifamily Southeast Feature Archive Walker & Dunlop

Walker Webcast: Steady Apartment Rent Collections Buoyed by Unemployment Benefits

by Kristin Harlow July 31, 2020

BETHESDA, MD. — Several industry professionals are predicting that a second stimulus bill will be a $1.75 trillion package approved by Aug. 15. The comments came on a “Walker Webcast” webinar, entitled “All Eyes on Washington: What Will the Next Stimulus Bill Do for CRE?” that took place on Wednesday, July 29. Commercial real estate finance firm Walker & Dunlop hosts the webinar series. Willy Walker, chairman and CEO of Bethesda, Md.-based Walker & Dunlop, spoke with Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA); Doug Bibby, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC); and Jeff DeBoer, president and CEO of Real Estate Roundtable. The three guests conversed on a variety of topics, with the possible extension of the eviction moratorium being one of the most discussed issues. Bibby of NMHC equated the moratorium to rent control. The notion sounds good because the consumer is protected, but it can have devastating effects on the owner, particularly in the multifamily space where a lot of landlords are smaller owner-operators. “They [multifamily owners] could lose everything with an eviction moratorium because they have mortgages, property taxes, insurance and payroll to pay,” said Bibby. Over 40 percent of apartment …

July 31, 2020

Florida Leasing Activity Restaurant Retail Southeast Southeast Feature Archive Video Webinar

Webinar: South Florida Retail Outlook: What is the Impact of COVID-19 on South Florida’s Retail Sector?

by Sarah Daniels July 27, 2020

(Panelists, clockwise from top left) Adam Tiktin, Tiktin Real Estate Investment Services; Rod Castan, Courtelis Company; Lyle Stern, Koniver Stern Group; Philip Rosen, Becker (moderator); Duane Stiller, Woolbright Development. Last week, Shopping Center Business and Southeast Real Estate Business hosted “South Florida Retail Outlook: What is the Impact of COVID-19 on South Florida’s Retail Sector?” Listen as a panel of retail experts discusses their gameplans: working with tenants and their employees as the industry seeks to adapt. Hear about attitudes towards loans, rent reductions, property value, next steps and more. See a list of some topics covered and their timestamps below: (07:00): How are restaurants and experiential tenants faring? (09:29) Adapting for the challenges of COVID-19 (17:28) South Florida retail rent trends over the next 180 days? (24:32) What can owners do today to position themselves to succeed? (36:00) When might we start to see real loan defaults and real distressed assets? (42:55) Lessons learned from 2007-2008 financial crisis (53:56) Decisions made in the pre-COVID-19 world that have carried over well into our current environment Hear how South Florida retail professionals are approaching industry challenges and evolving to meet the needs of retailers. Panelists: Philip Rosen, Becker (moderator) Adam Tiktin, …

July 27, 2020

Features Florida Retail Southeast Southeast Feature Archive

First Inning: South Florida Retail Market Resets as COVID-19 Throws a Curveball, Says SCB Webinar

by John Nelson July 23, 2020

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had an outsized impact on South Florida. According to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the region’s three primary counties rank in the top 20 of confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, July 22. At 92,345 cases, Miami-Dade County is No. 4 on the list. Broward County comes in at No. 9 with 43,747 cases, and Palm Beach County is No. 20 with 27,506 cases. The surge in cases has had a pronounced effect on the area’s retailers as citizens have resumed their caution in public settings for fear of contracting the virus. “There is a tremendous amount of distress across South Florida’s economy, and especially in retail,” said Philip Rosen, shareholder and real estate chair of law firm Becker. Rosen’s comments came during South Florida Retail Outlook, a webinar hosted by Shopping Center Business that discussed the impact of COVID-19 on South Florida’s retail sector. Rosen moderated the panel discussion, which had 337 registrants. The pandemic’s effect is not all negative as grocers, drugstores and hardware stores have enjoyed increased sales activity amid the crisis. However, the bulk of retail categories are suffering from extended closures and operating at limited capacities. Restaurants in particular …

July 23, 2020

Alabama Features Loans Multifamily Seniors Housing Southeast Southeast Feature Archive Student Housing

Three Months of Forbearance? Better Think Twice

by John Nelson May 26, 2020

By Chad Thomas Hagwood, Hunt Real Estate Capital Thanks to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), forbearance is now one of the biggest buzzwords in multifamily finance. When the FHFA announced at the end of March that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would offer mortgage forbearance to multifamily properties facing hardship as a result of COVID-19, many multifamily owners adopted a wait-and-see attitude. That was the right decision. As April went on, the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker steadily trended higher. By May 13, full or partial rent for the month of May was 87.7 percent collected. But with unemployment spiking to record levels, rent collections through the spring and into the summer will most certainly decline at many properties, causing owners to give those forbearance offers a second look. My advice: if there is anything owners can do to avoid forbearance, they should. While tempting, mortgage forbearance should be considered a last resort. Forbearance could take a reputational toll It’s generally implied that entering into a forbearance agreement will not impact a borrower’s ability to secure financing in the future. In an age that obsessively collects and retrieves data of all sorts, experience — and common sense — suggests that …

May 26, 2020

Features Georgia Restaurant Retail Southeast Southeast Feature Archive Video Webinar

Retail Reboot Webinar: Wave of Second-Generation Restaurant Space to Hit Atlanta Market

by John Nelson May 11, 2020

As many as 150,000 to 200,000 restaurants nationwide may never fully reopen again after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, according to estimates from the National Restaurant Association. This represents 15 to 20 percent of all U.S. restaurants. Though the metro Atlanta area’s restaurants have been allowed to reopen their dining rooms for a full two weeks following Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s directives in late April, early indications are that a large swath of operators are choosing to keep them closed and focus on takeout, delivery and catering. Others are making the hard choice to close their eateries permanently. As a result, there will be a wave of second-generation restaurant space that will need to be absorbed before new restaurants are built en masse in metro Atlanta, said Tom McCarty of barbecue restaurant chain Jim ’N Nick’s during a webinar hosted by France Media’s Shopping Center Business and sponsored by Retail Specialists. “From our standpoint, our developments are on hold for now,” said McCarty about the chain, which opened a location in metro Atlanta’s East Cobb district late last year. “The focus of the company is on getting our existing restaurants back up and running profitably. Once that happens, then we’ll start …

May 11, 2020

Features Heartland Feature Archive Northeast Feature Archive Restaurant Retail Southeast Feature Archive Texas & Oklahoma Feature Archive Western Feature Archive

JLL: Coronavirus Is Impacting Retail Supply Chains

by Sarah Daniels March 12, 2020

With the stock market dropping to lows unprecedented since the Great Recession on Monday and the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic, concerns are now rising regarding coronavirus’ long-term impact on domestic investments. But will the disease have any impact on brick-and-mortar retail? According to a research report from JLL, while retail supply chains have already been affected, the health of retail as whole depends heavily on how long the pandemic lasts. Certain sectors have already been impacted, and those in the industry can model their current economic outlook on the course SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) took in 2003. However, whether that model will hold as the pandemic evolves remains to be seen. The JLL report explains that the type of short-lived and limited outbreak created by SARS mainly affects the “first and second quarters with many retailers feeling impacts of a disrupted supply chain, but with a subsequent rebound in the following quarters.” Sectors already affected include inventory and complex supply lines. Chinese-manufactured goods may not be able to reach retailers in the coming weeks to months, as the retailers’ existing supply diminishes. Fashion stocks, especially for luxury retailers dependent on Chinese consumers …

March 12, 2020

Alabama Features Southeast Southeast Feature Archive

Property Tax Planning Delivers Major Savings

by John Nelson February 17, 2020

When it comes to property taxes, what you don’t know can hurt you. Whether it is failing to meet a valuation protest deadline, ignorance of available exemptions or perhaps missing an error in the assessment records, an oversight can cost a taxpayer dearly. Understanding common mistakes — and consulting with local property tax professionals — can help owners avoid the pain of unnecessarily high property tax bills. Think ahead on property taxes Many owners ignore property taxes until a valuation notice or tax bill arrives, but paying attention to tax considerations at other times can greatly benefit a taxpayer. For example, it’s good practice to ask the following questions before purchasing real estate, starting a project or receiving a tax bill. Does the property qualify for exemptions or incentives? Every state offers some form of property tax exemptions to specific taxpayers and property types. Examples include those for residential homesteads, charitable activities by some nonprofits and exemptions for pollution control equipment. Similarly, governments use partial or full property tax abatements in their incentive programs for enticing businesses to expand or relocate to their communities. While many of these programs are industry-specific, it is important to consider all of the taxpayer’s …

February 17, 2020

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