2018 Global Leaders in Real Estate Summit: Opportunity Zones

Mike Lefkowitz: Well, opportunity zones are just getting started. The regulations are just starting to come out now, so that seems to be during a 2019 the next big area of investment. Although, I don't believe any deals have taken place as of yet.
Ken Weissenberg: Opportunity zones are a creation under the new federal tax law that create a major tax incentive for investing in economically distressed areas. Those incentives include deferral of tax on capital gains as well as an exclusion of tax for assets held more than 10 years.

Jay Neveloff: A lot of our clients are looking at opportunities zones and those investments. It's affected by the time horizon. You need to fully take advantage of the opportunities and benefits. I don't think clients are going to make investments just to take advantage of those investments, but they are looking at it and they are a significant added benefit.
Andrea Himmel: We're planning to invest in a lot of assets that happened to be an opportunity zone, but we're not choosing the opportunity zones as the main source of the thesis.
Jamar Gordon: I think that is something that is under evaluation. I'm looking at those opportunities zones depending on what's the highest, best use for that area.
Amy Sole: We've been researching opportunity zones. It's a great tax shelter.
Lawrence Selevan: We have a number of clients that have come in that want to talk about opportunity zones, but as you look at the overlay of where they are, they only make sense if you're going to do low income Section 8 or senior housing, for what we see so far.