February 3, 2016 | Commercial Observer
For the past two years, the investment sales market in New York City has performed better than during any other two-year period I have seen in my 32 years brokering here. Values have soared due in large part to enhanced fundamentals, plentiful financing and an extremely acute supply/demand dynamic that has been skewed heavily in favor of demand. While this demand has been broad-based, foreign capital has been a significant component of the tremendous demand we have witnessed. And this foreign demand could be ready to surge to even greater heights.
Until recently, foreign investors in U.S. real estate were disadvantaged by a law that should never have been put into the tax code to begin with. The Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980, referred to as FIRPTA, unfairly (relative to other non-real property investments in the U.S.) imposes excessive tax barriers on foreign capital investment in American real estate. FIRPTA has been the central obstacle to greater capital investment by non-U.S. investors...
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