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Build Winning Alliances
Many professionals suspect there must be a more efficient way to attract customers. They wonder, "How can I shift from gathering one business card at a time to gathering thousands of customers through one initiative?" Business strategist Debra...
Entrepreneur to Employer - Considerations
You make the decision to go into business and for some time work from home or in leased premises and your business starts to grow. Like all businesses you experience growing pains. Cash Flow is sometimes tight, customers come in ebbs and flows but...
Mission and Vision Statements - Foundational to Successful Change
Successful leaders and organizations are vision driven rather than problem driven. Some management tools fail to affect any change; but here is one that will, if properly implemented. Mission and Vision Statements have been crafted by organizations...
Starting Your Business: Avoiding the "Me Incorporated" Syndrome
Many people who want to start a business have similar reasons for their ambitions. Typically, they are seeking autonomy from an employer, freedom, or control over their own destiny, which also means that they can determine their own income, work...
The Role of the Business Model and Strategy for Business
People will always stress that having a well researched business plan is key before you start your business. Although creating a business plan is often an important step in the evolution of a business, particularly if you need financing or you...
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Bridge Loans: Everything You Wanted To Know
As the name implies, bridge loans fulfill a vital need for active developers by giving life to a new project in the months before lenders feel confident enough to make available a construction loan, or a repositioning loan in the case of an existing project. But real estate bridge loans have other uses, both tactical and strategic, that make them indispensable in today's New York marketplace.
For new development projects, bridge loans provide financing for property assemblages, site acquisition, and development expenses. Not only do such loans provide the developer with the funds to acquire a site, they also supply the breathing room that the developer needs to create the architectural designs and analyses for new construction projects. Just as important, bridge loans offer an opportunity to refine the developer's property repositioning or acquisition plan in the case of an existing project.
During the development--or repositioning--planning stage, the developer's financial advisor has the time to arrange senior construction and mezzanine loan financing. For example, in recent months our firm has arranged highly competitive financing for projects under the 80/20 Bond Financing Program, and other projects under the recent Liberty Bond Program for downtown Manhattan. Still others have been condominium or office projects in which the fiercely competitive New York marketplace requires developers to move extremely rapidly to acquire control of desirable locations.
Bridge loans have other strategic uses for developers. By enabling construction to commence before a formal construction loan is in place, a developer may time construction to avoid a heavy winter schedule with the attendant extra
costs, or plan the completion of construction to coincide with the primary rental and sales months beginning in the spring and continuing into the summer season.
A typical bridge loan has a term of 12 months or less, with spreads ranging upwards from 225 over 30-day LIBOR depending upon the lender's view of the location, viability of the project, and reputation and financial strength of the developer. Commitment fees of 1% are common, although lower fees can sometimes be negotiated. In some instances, commitment fees on bridge loans can be credited against fees on subsequent loans from the same lender. Guarantees required for such loans are highly negotiable.
Our firm, The Singer & Bassuk Organization, has recently arranged over $250 million in bridge loans for seven separate transactions. In each instance, these loans have enabled developers such as The Moinian Group; Nathan Berman; a joint venture consisting of Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, a wholly owned subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and Adellco LLC; and a joint venture comprised of Jeffrey Levine's Douglaston Development and Continental Properties owned by the Fisch family, to acquire site control and arrange for the orderly start of construction.
I expect bridge loans to play an increasing role in New York financing and see a trend where lenders providing the ultimate financing for a project's development to provide bridge loans in order to cement the business and the relationship at an early stage in an increasingly competitive market.
About the Author
Marc Sylvester is expect based in Edison, NJ . He holds expertise in the banking and finance sector and is a conultant to leading business houses.
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