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Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area are frantically working to finalize their state-mandated “housing elements” in their General Plans by the January 31, 2023, deadline imposed by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). For Bay Area cities like San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Berkeley, the plans must be approved by HCD on or before January 31, 2023. California municipalities have extra incentive to get their housing elements approved this year, because the failure to meet the deadline may subject them to a remedy known as the “builder’s remedy.”

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In this four-part series, colleagues Caroline A. Harcourt and Patrick E. Fitzmaurice provide diligence checklists for the acquisition of distressed real estate debt, and discuss UCC foreclosure basics and 363 bankruptcy sales.

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This week’s round-up explores new artificial intelligence tools and their projected impact on real estate agents, key trends driving proptech innovation, barriers to adopting drones in the construction industry, and more.

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In “Recent Measures Establish Unprecedented Tax Increases on Real Property in California Cities,” Craig A. Becker, Breann E. Robowski, Rachel B. Horsch and David W. Wright examine the array of local measures approved by California voters in the 2022 midterms, which includes an increase in city-level transfer taxes and the addition of new taxes on property in LA and Bay Area cities.

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This week’s round-up dives into projections on construction inventory in the housing market, the first 3D-printed house, a replica of South Korea’s Seoul in the Metaverse, and more.

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To kick of 2023, this week’s news round-up dives into contech inventions projected to impact the industry, shifting home prices and buyer confidence, investors prioritizing decarbonization efforts, and more.

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GettyImages-1177706733-300x200Starting January 1, 2023, real estate developers in Oregon and California will no longer be required to build off-street parking facilities for certain projects located near public transit. Both states enacted new rules during the course of 2022 which are effective as of the beginning of 2023, and which seek to reduce the costs of building at least some new projects in major population centers.

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As we close out the last remaining weeks of 2022, all eyes look ahead to 2023. Below is a quick snapshot highlighting three trends and predictions that may continue to shape the commercial real estate landscape in 2023.

  1. Office space and the digital economy present attractive investment opportunities and potential. Even with all of the chatter about office vacancies during the last three years, according to Moody’s Analytics, “it’s important to note that none of the regions across the U.S. have seen office vacancy rates dip below their pre-pandemic Q4 2019 levels.” This might be due to creative and reimagined office spaces as the return to office continues. The hybrid work format and flexibility in spaces will continue in 2023.
  2. Data analytics and Proptech will continue to play a larger role, allowing property owners and tenants to collaborate to provide more efficiency, whether to achieve sustainability goals or leverage technology like immersive experiences to entice tenants to new spaces. An increase in demand for technology to solve issues will most likely continue in commercial real estate.
  3. ESG will continue to be a trending topic, particularly around regulatory and disclosure requirements. In 2022, we saw commercial real estate taking notice if increased ESG enforcement. In 2023, the industry will take specific and actionable steps to apply ESG (and leverage smart technology in commercial real estate) to reduce carbon footprint and greenhouse emissions in commercial buildings, collaboratively with tenants and retail locations.

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There are no shortage of bankruptcy considerations that must be understood by an incoming lender who acquires a distressed commercial real estate loan and whose borrower shortly thereafter files for bankruptcy protection. For the purposes of this article, we imagine a hypothetical distressed debt buyer who has acquired the loan with the goal of eventually obtaining the underlying property and who may be distressed (pun intended!) by the bankruptcy filing. While often considered an impediment to acquisition efforts, we believe that bankruptcy presents significant benefits and opportunities for the strategic loan-to-own investor.

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