WASHINGTON, DC–The House of Representatives will be voting on a bill this week that includes revisions to Basel III's High Volatility Acquisition, Development and Construction (HVCRE) financial requirements. The name of the measure is the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S.2155), which passed in the Senate in March.
The CRE Finance Council for one, predicts that S. 2155 will pass the House and become law.
The bill, it should be noted, is not rolling back the requirements as laid out by Basel III — in other words, there will still be parameters around this type of lending. “I think that ship sailed years ago with Basel III and people need to get comfortable with that. We have a new landscape and this bill softens the edges of that box but it certainly doesn't tear it down,” Dechert's finance and real estate partner Krystyna M. Blakeslee, who is also co-chair of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Counsel High Volatility Commercial Real Estate (CREFC-HVCRE) Working Group, told GlobeSt.com recently.
The bill contains the following, according to The Real Estate Roundtable, which has been lobbying to pass these changes:
Under the new measure, commercial borrowers will be able to satisfy the 15% equity requirement through the appreciated value of contributed land/property – versus the cost basis under the current rule. The measure also clarifies that loans made to acquire existing property with rental income and/or do cosmetic upgrades and other improvements don't trigger the HVCRE capital penalty.
This bill will be followed by financial deregulation legislation championed by House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the Real Estate Roundtable says.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
