Adam Cohen on real estate transactions
From Safehold’s Adam Cohen on Navigating Tax Challenges in Real Estate · · Nareit1
“Our transactions each are always different; each lease is different, each lease has a nuance, so we're working very manually in a very automated environment and at the same time we are starved for resources at the lower level.”
On , Adam Cohen, Senior Vice President of Tax at SAFEHOLD INC, spoke about real estate transactions during Safehold’s Adam Cohen on Navigating Tax Challenges in Real Estate on Nareit1.
About Adam Cohen
In a September 2024 interview with Nareit, Adam Cohen, senior vice president of tax at Safehold, discussed challenges in real estate tax reporting. He stated that the industry "needs to catch up with what's happening outside the real estate industry in terms of data management and analytics," noting that transactions are recorded manually in an automated environment. Cohen attributed this to real estate companies running "lean and mean" with limited budgets and staffing, and said that "bringing in young people and trying to train them in a very complex world is almost impossible." He expressed interest in using AI and automation for tasks like computing taxable income and adjustments. Cohen also described common long-term incentive structures in REITs. He said that "L tips" generally refer to profits interests in the operating partnership, which are typically offered to senior executives, while junior employees more often receive restricted stock units. He noted that few REITs use options because REIT growth is "very long-term, very steady state," making options less attractive over short vesting periods.