Join Us at the Green Building Finance and Investment Forum West
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Have you heard about the upcoming Green Building Finance & Investment Forum? We’re posting the fast facts here for those readers who have been asking via blog comments and direct emails to us about the details.
What: Green Building Finance & Investment Forum - West
When: 2-4 March 2009 (Monday through Wednesday)
Where: Hyatt Regency, San Francisco
Why We Recommend This Conference
Produced by Infocast, and sponsored by Galley Eco Capital, this conference is for commercial real estate professionals focused on the investment and finance side of sustainable and triple bottom line real estate — green real estate investors, developers and their capital sources.
The particular value of this meeting comes from the amount of attention paid to authenticity and high quality, pragmatic info: all the speakers are on the ground pacesetters who are actively advocating for green real estate and doing deals in the space. The audience is well-informed and outspoken in their comments and critiques. We work very hard to structure a program that delivers lots of specific drill-down as well as quality networking.
For a primer on the type on content that you can expect from this forum, check out our detailed summaries of this past September’s Green Building Finance and Investment Forum East, held in New York.
Galley Eco Capital is sponsoring this forum for the third time. We do it because we greatly enjoy the relationships and business that has come from the community of professionals that repeatedly visit this forum. They are sharp, positive and keep us all on our toes.
In addition to keynotes by Sam Adams, Mayor of Portland and Dave Williams, CEO of ShoreBank Pacific, our own Lisa Michelle Galley will chair the meeting and will also present during the workshop titled Designing, Developing and Financing Bright Green Communities.
Other forum topics include:
- Financing Energy Efficiency Retrofits
- Portfolio Owners & Pension Fund Perspectives
- Triple Bottom Line & Green Real Estate Investment Funds
- Brewery Blocks: A Case Study in Maximizing Investment Value
- Green Leases
Please contact us if you would like to to meet with us during this event.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Property Tax Appeals: Old School Finance Tactics for Existing Green Buildings
Even in the green economy, you can still go retro to maximize your project’s performance during an economic downturn.
When we deliver integrated financial services to sustainable real estate engagements, we don’t overlook the everyday financial strategies like property tax appeals because they can potentially deliver lots of value.
This type of assessment can be particularly valuable if the property has experienced increased vacancy and the owner is considering implementing a green retrofit program during the time when there are fewer tenants in the building — and is worried about whether the retrofit program will really pencil out. The reduction in property tax expense from a successful tax appeal is an additional boost to NOI over the other savings in operating expenses from going green, once the retro-commissioned building leases back up!
Here are links to two recent articles reminding landlords about the value of property tax reassessments during an economic downturn:
Item 1: Multifamily Guide has written their recommendation for landlords to obtain a property tax reassessment more regularly during an economic downturn.
Item 2: A recent Globe Street article advising landlords about obtaining a reduction in property taxes by claiming economic obsolescence.
* * *
And here’s a related issue for another day… Of course, filing a property tax appeal due to economic obsolescence is one thing these days. It doesn’t happen to that many buildings as a percentage of the total building stock in any given market. But how will the property tax appeal business look in a few years when the number of green buildings in a given market increases substantially? Could a certain increase in the volume of economic obsolescence driven property tax appeals signal a tipping point towards a more defined “green premium” (or brown penalty) that everyone’s predicting?
Here’s a parting quote for your Friday:
“You don’t pay taxes — they take taxes.”
-Comedian Chris Rock
