Dallas November 2020 – Key Take Aways

• Griffith Davison reported they are extremely busy, a lot of tax questions as people are planning for year end.  Employment issues are exploding, discrimination, wrongful termination, as well as  COVID-19 related issues.   Literally day by day there are new opinions on whether COVID-19  is a protected class or not. 
• Real estate and construction contracts are moving slowly but some progress is finally happening.
  Lenders are still tight on their lending, have seen more private lender business lately.  Private lenders are starting to move funds around again and their underwriting standards are a little lighter than traditional banks. 
• Andre Bailey with American National Bank reported that they are being cautious but still lending and people are ‘fighting’ over good deals.  As a whole financial institutions are looking and being very cautious on loan to value.  Not seeing values go down and rents are getting renewed,, also not seeing as many problems/workouts as during the summer.
• Spring Valley Construction reported that construction starts for 2020 fell across the US 14% and they are expecting a modest increase of 4% in 2021.  The growth in 2021 will be slow and sideways. 
• Single family was the only discipline in the construction industry that showed an increase in 2020 and is projected to show a 7% increase for 2021.  People are buying houses and there are not enough new houses for the demand.
• Commercial construction work has been scarce and getting anything through the City of Dallas is painstaking.
• Ten-X reported that activity is steady, and the number 1 traded asset class is retail and retail value add –also seeing  a lot of resurgence in hotels. 
• They have 21 Texas properties coming up in November and December, almost half are hotels, 6 are retail, 4 offices buildings, 1 industrial and 1 multi-family. 
• They have seen a resurgence in office building sales, primarily suburban.  Some are looking at central business district, believing that they will never get cheaper and feel long term demand will be there.
• Peter Byford and Whitney Ferguson gave an interesting and informative presentation on New Market Tax Credit. 
• New Market Tax Credits created 14,500 jobs through $1.6 B in projects.