Real Estate Transactions

We handle real property purchases and sales throughout the United States for local, national, and international clients. We have counseled, structured, negotiated, and closed some of the largest and most visible real estate transactions in the United States in recent years, ranging in size from the sale of individual assets to multi-state portfolios worth well over $2 billion. Our clients include taxable and tax-exempt investors, developers, property managers, real estate investment managers, fund sponsors, real estate operating companies, real estate investment trusts, lenders, and end users. We effectively collaborate with all parties to drive deals forward to closing, and our familiarity with current markets saves our clients time and costs by focusing on the most critical issues and identifying the most efficient business and legal solutions.

Our lawyers have drafted, negotiated, and completed some of the largest lease transactions on the West Coast, working with both landlords and tenants to handle property leasing in Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska. Our clients include all types of landlords and tenants, and we understand that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, we use our understanding of and experience with the unique leasing challenges in our clients’ industries, be it restaurants, retail, medicine, agriculture, tax exempt organizations, or public-private partnerships, to provide the right solution. Further, our experience enables us to work effectively and efficiently to ensure transactions are completed as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

Our real estate attorneys regularly represent lenders and borrowers in real estate financing transactions throughout the United States. We are familiar with current market structures and terms for all types of real estate finance transactions, and can draw on the deep experience of our teams in the tax, environmental, corporate, land use, bankruptcy and other specialty areas as appropriate in particular transactions. Our experience enables us to support projects of all sizes, from traditional single property financings of several million dollars to corporate financings in excess of $1 billion, and real estate loan portfolio purchase and sale transactions of up to $4 billion. We serve clients from such diverse industries as banks, insurance companies, investment funds, other non-bank commercial lenders, developers, corporate and institutional owners of real estate, and Native American Tribes.

As rents skyrocket in major metropolitan markets and price long-term residents out of their neighborhoods, the affordable housing sector becomes increasingly vital. Financing multi-family affordable housing projects is one of the hallmarks of our practice. On behalf of nine large lenders, we close over 40 construction and permanent loans per year, supported by state and federal tax credits, as well as tax-exempt bond issuances. Membership in key industry groups, such as the California Housing Consortium, helps us keep our clients ahead of new developments in this sector.

We represent sponsors and capital partners in joint ventures and are extremely knowledgeable in structuring preferred return and promote structures, drawing on our large bank of deals and creativity to develop custom structures for each transaction. We negotiate fees for asset management, development, property management, leasing and the like. We balance the interest of developers needing flexibility for day-to-day operations with those of capital partners who must fulfill fiduciary duties. Our JV structures have resulted in award-winning projects carried out by clients who are leaders in their respective real estate product types, from hotel to commercial to industrial.