Category Archives: Real Estate

Subscribe to Real Estate RSS Feed

Sometimes, It Really Is a Duck: What If Things Are About to Go Bad?

Conspiracy theory fans, tin-foil hat wearers everywhere, Nostradamus wannabes, the broadly unhinged and, of course, our professional purveyors of doom and gloom roosting on evening cable news see patterns where there are none, embrace straight-line projections based on disparate and unrelated data and loudly and often shrilly bleat that the end is nigh.  That’s all … Continue Reading

CREFC Capital Markets Conference Recap

On October 26, 2022, Dechert partners Laura Swihart and Stewart McQueen attended the CREFC Capital Markets Conference in New York City. Stewart gave opening remarks and Laura moderated a panel on the current housing market and its intersection with multi-family, single-family and build-to-rent properties. Laura and Stewart sat down with Law Clerks Jared Goldstein and … Continue Reading

Rick Jones on The TreppWire Podcast

Crunched Credit’s own Rick Jones spoke with the TreppWire team for their latest podcast. Covering everything from the future of CMBS to the Great Recession, the conversation was wide reaching. Be sure to tune in for more on Rick’s interview with Sam Zell, how we’re headed for a “square root” recovery and why this “light … Continue Reading

“I Was Just Following Orders”

My last commentary, Playing with Broken Toys in Coronavirus Land, touched on the notion that sometimes following rules can guarantee a bad outcome.  I’ll leave more important musings about ethics and morality aside here (I still don’t have a clue about what Kant was nattering on about) and focus on the more mundane question of … Continue Reading

Beds without Heads: Hotels in the Era of the Coronavirus

The spread of COVID-19 has created a new reality for the hospitality industry. As of March 25, the CDC reported 54,453 confirmed cases in the U.S., and the number is expected to grow exponentially. In the hopes of slashing infection rates, governments have implemented international travel bans, shelter-in-place orders and other restrictive measures. The second-most … Continue Reading

Beany & CECL

Beany & Cecil was a cartoon.  The Current Expected Credit Loss accounting rules, better known as CECL, which the FASB is insisting will go into effect at the beginning of next year for publicly traded banks and lenders and a year later for all other GAAP reporting entities is not.  Now, heaven forfend that I … Continue Reading

Commercial Real Estate and Climate Change

God help me, I’m finally writing about climate change.  This commentary assiduously avoids the obviously political (we take the view that complaining about and belittling our elected representatives and the permanent bureaucracy for doing boneheaded things is entirely apolitical).  And while even the phrase “climate change” carries with it a certain frisson of a capital … Continue Reading

The Next Recession: Something…Perhaps Not Really Wicked… But Certainly Annoying…This Way Comes

With full and complete credit to the Bard (Macbeth), and to Mr. Ray Bradbury who repurposed this line as the title for his 1962 dark fantasy (of which I was and still am a huge fan), there is just not a better title for this note. Trust me. A few weeks ago, I inked a … Continue Reading

HVCRE (The Reformed Loan): Musings and Next Steps

Since my last post, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (which some are referring to as EGRRCPA – oof.) was signed into law by President Trump on May 24th. Section 214, titled, “Promoting Construction and Development on Main Street,” amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to clarify what loans are subject to … Continue Reading

Securitizing Marijuana Dispensary Properties in the Sessions Era

In 2013, the Obama administration issued the Cole Memorandum, which called a truce between federal prosecutors and marijuana businesses operating legitimately under state law.  After regime change in Washington, however, it may come as no surprise that Jeff Sessions—the Attorney General who once opined that “good people don’t smoke marijuana”—rescinded the Obama-era guidance.  The only … Continue Reading

IMN 2018 New Hotel Development and Construction Conference

Last week IMN hosted an inaugural New Hotel and Development Conference in New York City.  The gathering of developers, hotel operators, brands and other hospitality service providers was very upbeat.  Many panelists indicated that they were more optimistic now than they had been six months ago.  They credited the state of the macro economy and … Continue Reading

Single-Family Rental: The Landscape and Future of CRE’s Newest Asset Class

Earlier this month, our very own Kenneth D. Hackman, a regular contributor to Crunched Credit, moderated a panel entitled Single-Family Rental: The Landscape and Future of CRE’s Newest Asset Class, hosted by Dechert LLP, for CREFC’s After-Work Seminar Series. The esteemed panel consisted of Kevin S. Dwyer, Senior Vice President, RMBS, Morningstar Credit Ratings, LLC; … Continue Reading

Risk Retention and the CRE CLO

As we are just inking one of the very first pre-risk retention effective date risk retention deals (Potemkin Village anyone?), we are also seeing an increased flow of what are generically referred to as CRE CLOs. It’s time to consider how the Risk Retention Rule (the “Rule”) will apply to this growing market technology.… Continue Reading

Seeing is Believing: ALTA’s New Survey Standards

For those of you who read our commentary regularly, you’ll see that we span the commentariat world from musings of perhaps little practical utility but great import (at least to us) to the more mundane.  Today, mundane. Let’s talk title policies and survey standards.  There’s good news here and often good news doesn’t travel fast … Continue Reading

Why Regulation Fails

I’d like everyone to go out and buy a copy of Professor Paul Mahoney’s slender new book, Wasting a Crisis – Why Securities Regulation Fails.  Paul is a brilliant guy.  Until this spring, he was the dean of the University of Virginia School of Law where he is the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor … Continue Reading

“Shaking” Things Up: Seismic Risk Assessments

Returning to our theme that nothing’s easy and everything keeps changing, here is one out of left field. Let’s talk Probable Maximum Loss (“PML”) and seismic risk. ASTM International, the market standard setting organization for everything from toilet bowls to condoms, has just issued an amended seismic standards: Standard Guide for Assessments of Buildings (E2026-16) … Continue Reading

Coming to a Hotel Near You: The Starwood-Marriott Merger

It seems fitting that Marriott’s upcoming acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts (creating one of the largest hotel companies in the world) is anticipated to occur during the prime summer vacation season.  The combined company will be comprised of more than 5,500 hotels and 30 brands.  By way of comparison, Hilton is comprised of over … Continue Reading

Text on the Dotted Line: A Text Message Can Create a Binding Contract

Here’s another story in the “It never gets easier” file. The Massachusetts Land Court recently decided a case that perhaps we should have all guessed was coming. This is the above the fold headline:  Text messages may now create binding contracts.  Specifically, a text message can constitute a signature sufficient to satisfy the Statute of … Continue Reading
LexBlog