Just Announced: New Opportunity Zone Regulations Released

The highly anticipated second round of opportunity zone regulations was just released. Here’s what brokers need to know about opportunity zone funds.

The real estate investment space has been anxiously awaiting further guidance from the government around opportunity zones. The second set of regulations was finally announced on April 17, and the government “hope[s] we’ve provided enough guidance so that investors can begin to deploy capital into these opportunity zones,” according to Bisnow.

As the Bisnow article illustrates, investors were emboldened enough by the first set of regulations released to create opportunity zone funds devoted to a single asset, in the form of either a new development or one redevelopment project. However, larger opportunity zone funds have been building up in anticipation of this latest announcement, and investors may now be ready to deploy those funds towards large-scale projects in one or several opportunity zones.

With a potential influx of investment in commercial properties located in opportunity zones across the country, commercial real estate brokers must be prepared to quickly find promising opportunities for any clients who may be representing opportunity zone funds. The savviest brokers will be those who turn to location intelligence to help them beat their competition to these deals. Here’s how our map-based real estate application, LandVision™, makes finding, researching, and analyzing properties located in opportunity zones easier.

Finding Properties for Opportunity Zone Funds in LandVision

Using LandVision allows brokers to search for and analyze only the properties that meet all of their clients’ unique requirements. This includes property characteristics such as land use, building square footage, lot size, assessed value, and more. LandVision also gives brokers two different ways to place properties in the context of opportunity zones. First, the property information panel for any parcel selected in LandVision will indicate whether or not the property is located in an opportunity zone, and if so the type of opportunity zone. For wider searches for properties in opportunity zones, you can also select “Qualified Opportunity Zones” from our layers panel to overlay them on your map. Selecting an opportunity zone will give you the ability to search within the area for properties meeting your client’s other base requirements.

If, as expected, opportunity zone funds targeting investments in multiple properties are stirred to life by the recent update to regulations, LandVision can help brokers identify larger opportunities and even begin negotiations. With just one click, brokers can access complete ownership information for any property under consideration, even if the property is held in an LLC or trust. LandVision can even help brokers understand owner portfolios, illustrating opportunities to negotiate the sale of multiple properties with the same owner.

Using LandVision to Receive Market Alerts

For brokers seeking a greater understanding of the activity taking place within the opportunity zones in their market, LandVision provides several powerful features for analyzing recent transactions. In addition to filtering by property characteristics, brokers can elect to search for properties that have transacted within a specified time frame. When reviewing individual parcels, brokers can access the complete transaction history for a given property. Or, to automatically be notified of recent transactions in their market as they are recorded, brokers can even set up market alerts for specific territories.

Using our Market Alerts workflow, a broker seeking to target opportunity zone funds can establish opportunity zones as markets in LandVision to receive an update when parcels within the opportunity zones are sold. These updates can be presented to prospective clients as an indication of the ongoing activity within the market, and they can also be used to analyze micro trends in the sale price of comparable properties.

Learn More

There is little doubt that opportunity zones will remain a hot topic of conversation in the commercial real estate space in the months to come, and we would love to show you how LandVision can help you capitalize on the investment of opportunity zone funds. You can schedule a free demo today to see LandVision in action, or contact us if you have any questions!