Hunton is consistently recognized as one of the most experienced law firms with respect to real estate capital markets transactions, representing issuers, underwriters, sponsors, lenders, and investors in connection with structuring and financing publicly and privately owned real estate companies, including in particular real estate investment trusts (REITs). The firm regularly receives top-tier national rankings for its work as both issuer’s and underwriter’s counsel in Chambers USA, The Legal 500, Bloomberg, and Refinitiv. We are one of the only law firms in the world that fully service both equity and mortgage REITs.

The firm has significant capabilities to get complex matters resolved. The team is exceptional.

– Chambers USA, 2024

Full-Service Legal Platform. We bring a full-service team to the table to meet the dynamic scope of a client’s structuring, financing, and governance needs. Our Real Estate Capital Markets practice is part of the firm’s broader Capital Markets and Securities practice and often overlaps with our other practices, including Private Investment Funds, Structured Finance and Securitization, Mergers and Acquisitions, Real Estate, Development and Finance, and Real Estate Investment and Finance.

Decades of Experience. We have handled approximately 155 IPOs and Rule 144A equity offerings and nearly 1,200 capital markets transactions involving more than 215 REITs and other real estate companies. Our clients include equity and mortgage REITs, C corporations, real estate funds, partnerships, and other owners of real estate, investment banking firms acting as underwriters of and advisors to REITs and other real estate companies, lenders, and other industry participants. We pride ourselves on our long-term relationships with REIT industry clients. We have represented numerous clients for decades, in many cases from their IPO through their eventual sale or merger. We work closely with the leading investment banking firms, accounting firms, and other professionals active in the real estate finance industry.

Broad Asset Class Experience. We have been involved in transactions for REITs and other real estate companies investing in office buildings, retail properties, industrial, data center, distribution and flex facilities, apartment properties, hotels, single family residential rental, storage facilities, health care properties, shopping centers, automobile dealerships, skilled nursing, congregate care housing, medical office buildings, cannabis-related properties, wellness and recovery centers, golf courses, bank branches, student and military housing, timberland, vineyards, mortgage loans, mortgage-backed securities, and mortgage servicing rights. The diverse nature of our real estate industry clients enhances the breadth of our experience in handling financing transactions and addressing the ongoing disclosure, reporting, and tax compliance issues that arise in such transactions.

We work on a full range of transactions and corporate and tax matters for our real estate company clients, including:

• REIT IPOs
• At the market offerings
• Follow on offerings
• REIT spin-offs
• REIT externalization and internalization transactions
• Real estate fund formations
• Roll Ups
• Convertible debt
• High yield debt
• Preferred Stock
• Corporate governance
• Quarterly and annual reporting and disclosure (1933 and 1934 Act)
• Monitoring SEC developments
• Tax
• M&A
• UPREIT and DownREIT transactions
• Up C transactions
• REIT Conversion from C Corporation or Publicly Traded Partnership
• Real Estate Joint Ventures
• Credit facilities and mortgages
• LTIPs
• Lending
• Land banking
• Bankruptcy, workouts, and restructuring
• Mortgage securitization
• Investment Company Act of 1940
• IRS tax rulings
• Purchases of operating businesses (originators or investment advisors)
• Portfolio Acquisitions/Dispositions
• FIRPTA structuring with private REITs
• DeREITing

Experience highlights include:

Founding to IPO

Mergers and Acquisitions

Mortgage REITs

Lodging/Hotel REITs

REIT Tax

Real Estate Fund Formation