Commerial Real Estate Financing
BCCG places Commercial debt, equity, and mezzanine financing for all types of real estate projects ranging from $50,000 to $250,000,000.
BCCG has a long history of working with investment banking firms nation-wide and internationally. Our staff and correspondents have over 50 years experience in Financial Services and the Consulting industry.
COMMERCIAL LENDING MARKET AND TRENDS
Jeff Kronthal, co-managing partner at KLS Diversified Asset Management in New York, a fixed-income fund that invests in structured products, said the fundamentals of the real-estate industry are sound, but some hedge funds and investors that earlier bulked up on riskier securities have been liquidating their positions and pushing CMBS prices down.
The concern is that weakness in the financing market could hurt property values, which the Federal Reserve has warned were getting frothy.
Commercial-real-estate values are generally based on the income the properties generate and buyers’ borrowing costs. If investors and lenders pull back significantly, borrowers would have to put up more cash or equity, which could hurt property values, Trepp mortgage analyst Joe McBride said.
A national commercial-property price index from Moody’s Investors Service and RCA rose 12.7% in 2015 to an all-time high and is now 17.3% above its precrisis peak. Price gains slowed in the second half of last year, however.
Already there are signs that lending standards are loosening as borrowers try to keep up with rising values. Loan-to-value ratios have been creeping higher, and more borrowers are taking out interest-only loans.
“While loan underwriting has gotten more aggressive as the cycle has progressed, we do not see the type of extreme leverage levels in commercial real estate that we saw in the years leading up to 2008,” said Jim Higgins, managing member of Sorin Capital Management, an investment firm.
Investors, developers and many professionals are still not comfortable in dealing with private and institutional lenders. This, along with the experience and knowledge required to reach these lenders, is where Benchmark Commercial Capital Group excels.