Biography
Debbie Gezon’s real estate practice encompasses affordable housing and multifamily lending, real estate finance, commercial leasing, and real estate development transactions. While based in the firm’s Los Angeles office, she handles real estate matters throughout the country. She is a member of the firm’s Real Estate + Development Group and Co-Chair of Affordable Housing Finance.
Affordable Housing Lending
Debbie has extensive experience in all types of affordable housing lending transactions, including construction and permanent financing, tax-exempt bond financing, tax credit transactions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan and credit enhancement transactions, Affordable Housing Program (AHP) loan transactions, 236 decouplings, and other mortgage lending programs.
She has assisted lenders with financing transactions for affordable housing projects throughout the United States including: a $188 million portfolio of 16 loans including 6 Fannie Mae M.TEM loans and 10 Freddie Mac cash loans covering projects in Texas, Florida and South Carolina; a $132 million development of a multi-use tower project in San Francisco; a $53 million construction to permanent loan for a 200-unit affordable family and senior apartment complex in Colorado where project financing included a “CHIF” loan and a “DR” Loan from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, a loan from the Housing Authority of the County of Boulder, Worthy Cause Grants from Boulder County, City of Louisville Impact and Permit Grants and a Boulder Builder Consortium HOME Loan, the project also benefitted from a Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments Contract; a $38 million mixed use development under a ground lease from the City of Los Angeles; and a $66 million Freddie Mac bond credit enhancement transaction for a project in Honolulu.
Real Estate - Development
Debbie provides a full range of services to clients for their real estate development efforts, from negotiations, to contract drafting, to financing. She has assisted real estate owners and developers with a variety of projects. On behalf of a property owner, she played a key role in the negotiation and drafting of architectural, supplier and construction management agreements for the installation of an observation deck on a skyscraper in California, a project that has become a tourist destination. She also assisted in the negotiation and drafting of the property management agreement of the observation deck space.
Previously, Debbie was in-house counsel at Fannie Mae and in-house counsel for a privately-held company with significant real estate holdings. She also spent several years as a commercial bankruptcy lawyer, and clerked for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois.