Real Estate Tax Planning for 2010: Dealing with Distressed Assets
By David Thaw, Vice President, Gumbiner Savett Inc.
With the continued downturn in the real estate markets, the one topic that many will wrestle with at this time of year is their year-end tax strategy: What do we do with these distressed assets?
There are a number of options when it comes to dealing with non-performing assets, and much of it depends on the status of the property. The loan may be heading for default or the owner may have already completed a workout with the lender. No matter what the action, it is prudent to consider the tax consequences to ensure that your choice provides the best outcome in the long run.
SAN DIEGO, Calif.-Tenants are warming up to urban areas and are starting to expand again despite the recession. The main reason, says Greg Lyon a design principal at architecture firm Nadel, speaking here at the recent International Council of Shopping Centers conference. He also tells us why the mall isn't dead.
Chris Atkinson, a 21-year veteran in commercial real estate, was named President of Brokerage at Charles Dunn Company, one of the largest full service regional real estate companies on the West Coast.
Atkinson’s arrival comes at a time when the 89-year-old Los Angeles-based firm is in the process of advancing new company-wide initiatives including the recent post of Chris Cooper as CEO and an upcoming move from its current West Los Angeles office to a new location in Century City.
“Chris brings tremendous passion to his work in the brokerage arena,” said Cooper. ‘He’s got an instinctive ability to build cohesive and meaningful integrated service opportunities that will allow every aspect of Charles Dunn to expand, grow and thrive. There’s no question that Chris will be a key ingredient to this exciting process, and we’re pleased to have him on board.”
Herb Nadel is one of the most prominent architects in Los Angeles County. During his five-decade career, he has designed well-known projects ranging from the Westwood Center office building to the LAX Gateway public art project – that’s those light towers – to downtown L.A.’s Union Rescue Mission. But Nadel, 70, had anything but a traditional path to success.
He was a miserable student whose parents took little interest in academics. It was only a fateful turn in the Coast Guard after failing out of Santa Monica City College that launched him toward success. In the maritime service, he weathered extreme anti-Semitism that put his life in danger, making him grow up rapidly. Almost four decades later, the firm he founded in 1973 boasts some 90 employees and has a strong international presence. Nadel sat down with the Business Journal in his stylish West L.A. office and spoke candidly about his life, becoming emotional when discussing difficult topics – such as the deaths of two siblings and his 30-year-old daughter. He also talked eagerly about the way he spends his free time – skiing, golfing and traveling the world with his companion, Jeannine Sefton – and how he plans to wind down his career.
Real estate veteran Howard brings extensive career background and vast industry knowledge
SAN DIEGO, Calif.—August 17, 2010—David E. Howard, a 25-year commercial real estate veteran, has been named president of Lee & Associates’ San Diego North office. Howard, who joined Lee in 2005, is a founding principal of Lee’s national accounts group, which today represents name brand national office and industrial clients throughout the country. In Mr. Howard’s new role he will be responsible for all management activities such as brokerage operations, sales support, information technology and ancillary services.
“While the San Diego real estate market has been lackluster at best, we are poised to take advantage of the new right sizing done not only by corporate America but all business owners over the last few years, and I’m extremely excited about taking the helm here,” said Howard. “There is no question that our ability to provide superior and all-encompassing service to our customers will allow us to increase our market share in and around the San Diego area to both regional and national companies.”
Prior to joining Lee & Associates, Mr. Howard was the president and CEO of RESOURCE Commercial Real Estate, Inc. (RCRE). The firm specialized in strategic representation to end-users of commercial real estate and buyers and sellers of investment properties. Under Howard’s watch, the firm expanded to six offices throughout the Western U.S.
A well-known powerhouse in the industry, Howard has been involved in major real estate activities including the Walnut Creek, Calif. relocation of Newmeyer & Dillion LLP; the new Orange County office of Collins, Collins, Muir & Stewart LLP; and the relocation of the Discount Dance Supply’s distribution center in Anaheim, Calif. along with stores in San Diego, Rancho Cucamonga, Anaheim Hills and Temecula, Calif. In addition, he recently completed the sublease of Ace Funding’s regional office in San Jose, Calif.
Howard started his career in commercial real estate as a director of corporate services at Charles Dunn Company in Los Angeles as well as with CBRE as part of the Madison Advisory Group located in Newport Beach, Calif.
Howard replaces Brad Roppe, who leaves to assume a position outside of the real estate industry.
“David is an experienced commercial real estate professional, manager and entrepreneur, and a perfect fit for our broker-owned structure,” said Larry Strickland, founding principal of Lee & Associates, Carlsbad. “We are delighted to bring David’s managerial skills along with his marketing expertise to our office and we are confident he will be a great addition to our already successful team. I personally look forward to having him on board.”
Howard attended the University of Maryland and California State University, Fullerton majoring in business administration and real estate. Since then, he has also earned the Real Property Administration® (RPA) and Facilities Management Administrator® (FMA) designations from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) and has frequented the list of “Who’s Who in Real Estate” over the course of his career. In addition to being a licensed California real estate broker, Howard has acted as a legal expert witness in commercial law cases.
Prior to embarking on his commercial real estate career, he was the director of real estate at TRW Information Services in addition to being the real estate operations manager with Macy’s department stores. He has also served with distinction in the United States Coast Guard.
Atlanta will give the national real estate brokerage firm its first Southeast location
ATLANTA—August 16, 2010—Lee & Associates, one of the largest commercial real estate services firms in the country, has made a key strategic move in its national expansion plan through a merger with one of Atlanta’s most respected real estate service firms headed by Richard Bryant, Bryant Commercial Real Estate Partners, whose offices are located at 3500 Lenox Road, NE., Suite 200 in Atlanta.
“Atlanta is a major accomplishment in Lee’s overall business plan, which sets a major emphasis on their expansion eastward. Metro Atlanta comprises 28 counties and is home to more than 5.3 million people and 145,000 private-sector firms,” said Edward Indvik, chairman of the Lee Advisory Board and vice chairman of Lee & Associates Investment Services Group. “All this makes the Atlanta MSA the ninth largest in the country.”
As Atlanta’s growth continues at a frenetic pace — the population is expected to increase by 2.3 million by 2030 — Indvik said Atlanta remains one of the nation’s top centers of business activity.
“Along with Atlanta’s top industry sectors of trade, transportation, utilities and professional services and government, this area is also home to hundreds of corporate headquarters, 12 of which are Fortune 500 companies, and thousands of small businesses and more than 2,100 international companies,” Indvik said.
The Atlanta office gives Lee its first appearance in the Southern market and will offer full-service brokerage with its 31 brokers.
“In today’s competitive commercial real estate environment being able to offer a national reach with local expertise is more important than ever,” said Bryant. “Lee & Associates provides for that capability without burdening the company with unnecessary structure or expense. Being a part of the Lee organization expands our services platform both nationally and internationally without losing the ability to make decisions and fashion our services with clients’ needs as our primary focus.”
In 2004, Bryant formed Bryant Commercial Real Estate Partners with the objective of creating a firm that provides the highest level of integrity, expertise and service in the Atlanta marketplace. He reached this success by focusing on building and maintaining long-term client relationships. This was a key reason why Lee & Associates is extremely pleased with the merger opportunity.
“One of the key components in our business plan is to link with experienced brokers who know the market,” Indvik said. “In Bryant Commercial Real Estate Partners, you not only have a company who is firmly in command of the market, but has created a reputation in Atlanta real estate that is second to none.”
Said Bryant: “Through the partnership with Bryant, Lee & Associates will enter the Atlanta market with instant expertise, capabilities, and reputation. Lee & Associates will offer full service capabilities in all facets of commercial real estate to include tenant/landlord and buyer/seller representation in office, industrial, and retail properties, property management, and investment sales. As well as asset management and disposition services primarily fashioned to assist our banking clients. In addition, our capital markets group will represent buyers and lenders as they search for viable investment opportunities.”
Before he formed Bryant Commercial Real Estate Partners, Bryant was chairman, president and managing director of the Atlanta offices of GVA Advantis Real Estate Services. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and managing broker at Portman Barry Investments in Atlanta and was vice president and resident manager for CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Services in the Southeastern region.
Other key figures joining the Lee Atlanta management team include Bryant Commercial partners Rick Tumlin, Kurt Unger, Mark Hollan, John DeCouto, Bruce Davis and Craig Viergever, Jim Ramseur, Nadia Wagner and Scott Crooks.
With its Atlanta office, Lee & Associates now encompasses 40 offices nationwide.
Lee & Associates’ Investment Services Group conducts its second quarter national poll
LOS ANGELES—July 15, 2010—In a second quarter survey by Lee & Associates’ Investment Services Group, the Los Angeles-based brokerage firm invited thousands of its clients nationwide to complete a short online survey consisting of eight key questions facing private real estate investors. The respondents included high-net-worth individuals, partnerships and other groups specializing in commercial real estate deals valued in the range of $2 million to $20 million.
Mark Larson, vice chairman of the ISG and who specializes in land, investment and consulting brokerage, spearheaded the survey.
“While there does seem to be some thawing on the investor front, which seems to be evident with Lee offices reporting an increase in deal activity, there still remains a mood of caution among investors,” Larson said.
Based on responses to the survey, Larson said some key points have emerged:
Most think we are starting to see commercial real estate strengthen.
Sellers still need to be more realistic, however, the great news is that there are buyers who are ready, willing, anxious and have capital.
Lenders have to start making loans.
Government involvement has been too slow to assist in lending and job creation.
As institutions are on the sidelines for the most part, now is the best time for private investors to buy.
Below are the results:
1. How long has it been since you last purchased a commercial property?
As the economic environment continues to plod along, the number of investors that have not purchased a commercial property in over one year increased to 76 percent, which is a 4 percent increase over the number last quarter. However, investors that closed on transactions within the last four months increased by more than 14 percent -- truly a good sign.
2. What was the value of the transaction?
Almost one-half of all transactions that closed were $5 million and below with 72 percent of the deals under $10 million. This represents the demand by private investors to take advantage of the marketplace and lack of activity by institutional investors in their “lower range” in acquisitions of well located assets. There was a huge decrease, 57 percent, in properties valued above $10 million that sold this last quarter.
3. The property was purchased on which basis?
There was a 20 percent drop in lender financed property from the last quarter, although a little over one-half of all transactions -- 52 percent -- were lender financed. All cash sales increased by 45 percent, with 37.9 percent of the reported transactions being all cash. There were some assumable loans that accounted for closing 5.7 percent of all the sales last quarter.
4. What type of investments would you most favor today?
The confidence in the stock market has rebounded somewhat but the overwhelming place for private investors to place funds is still in commercial real estate (38.9 percent) and short term cash (28.9 percent). This is a drop of approximately 7 percent from last quarter, but still shows the confidence that investors have in commercial real estate, which stayed at the same 39 percent rate. This finding is still significant because private investors typically rely on leverage to a greater degree than institutional investors and are not as adverse to risk.
5. How long until the commercial real estate market begins to strengthen?
At last there is some optimism in the commercial real estate market. Last quarter, 82 percent of the respondents did not think the market had started to strengthen yet. This past quarter, that number went down to 63 percent, a reduction of 30 percent. For the first time in two years, over one-half of the respondents believe the market will be strengthening in less than 18 months. About one-fourth were still pessimistic that we still have over 24 months before the market shows signs of getting stronger.
6. Have Sellers become more or less realistic in the past 3 months?
Private investors still believe that sellers are not realistic enough. In our first quarter report, 72 percent thought sellers were “slightly” more realistic in their pricing. That number decreased by over 60 percent this quarter. Buyers still think sellers are trying to sell on “yester-year” prices in today’s environment. While it is still unclear if the bottom has occurred, many believe it is close and the time for the private investor to get active is now. Most of the lender non-performing assets (REOs) are not premium properties and are trading at bargain prices. However, that also is having a negative effect on those properties that are B+ and above. There seems to be little effect on A trophy assets. In addition, lenders are extending loans on the nicer assets in hopes of the borrower being able to eventually turn the tide and get the asset performing again.
7. What do you think will stimulate sale activity?
We asked our investors what they thought would reverse the trend and get all of us making deals again. For the first time, job creation was the No. 1 response, up 22 percent from the last quarter. We need to get people back to work and have companies getting healthy again which results in a stronger commercial real estate market. That response was followed closely by more available financing. Banks and other lenders are just not making loans; either not available or underwriting is so restrictive that it doesn’t make economic sense. The “fuel” for an uptick in activity is the large amount of private capital that has been on the sidelines and is now coming into play. As Sellers become more realistic, activity will increase dramatically. Same goes for the lenders, as soon as they start making loans, this market will be off and running again.
8. Which product type do you favor?
Assuming all the factors discussed come to fruition and activity increases, we wanted to know what commercial real estate properties would be in the highest demand. Again, the backbone of our business, industrial uses, was No. 1 at 38 percent, up 11 percent over last quarter. Office and Retail continue to be sluggish and need the economy to rebound to once again increase its demand. Multi-family remained second at 25 percent with retail at 15.6 percent. Office was at 13.6 percent and single tenant assets were last at 7.5 percent.
