Most commercial real estate deals don’t fail because the property stops working, they fail when the financing structure quietly removes flexibility.

In this episode, we examine four under appreciated drivers of downside outcomes: 1) Intercreditor Agreements, 2) Cash Management & Springing Cash Traps, 3) Recourse Carveouts, and 4) Loan Extension conditions.

We explain how control, liquidity, and recourse shift when performance softens, and why risks that don’t show up in underwriting models often determine real-world results.

A technical, practitioner-focused discussion for investors, sponsors, and lenders.

We hope you enjoy!

Financing credits can be the difference between a deal that stalls and a deal that gets built.

In this episode of The Alkaline Reaction, Spencer breaks down five of the most important financing credits used in commercial real estate development. These tools go far beyond traditional debt and equity and can materially improve project feasibility, returns, and capital stack efficiency.

You’ll learn how Tax Increment Financing, New Markets Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and energy and sustainability-related incentives actually work, when they apply, and how developers use them to reduce costs, lower equity requirements, and unlock challenging projects.

In this episode of The Alkaline Reaction, Spencer breaks down the key players of commercial real estate.

While commercial real estate is often discussed as a single profession, successful deals rely on a network of specialized roles working together. We explore seven essential participants: developers, operators, asset managers, investors, capital brokers, investment sales brokers, and lenders, explaining how each contributes to deal execution, risk management, and long-term outcomes.

Whether you’re new to commercial real estate or looking to deepen your understanding of how deals actually get done, this episode provides a clear framework for how capital, operations, and structure intersect.

In this episode of The Alkaline Reaction, we break down preferred equity, what it is, who uses it, and how it works inside real estate capital stacks.

We explore how preferred equity sits between senior debt and common equity, why investors and operators rely on it in different market environments, and how structure shapes risk and outcomes.

The episode walks through two detailed real-world scenarios 1) a stabilized multifamily acquisition and 2) a higher-risk transitional redevelopment, showing how preferred equity performs under different conditions, and why alignment matters.