News & Press

Excerpted from the article published by PERE Credit

Development activity has dropped significantly over the past three years, leaving an opening for new construction.

One side-effect of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been an improvement in the landscape for some development, according to market analysts.

The 2025 legislation made several changes around existing qualified opportunity zones, including more flexibility around the timeframe for investing, noted Kevin McHale, a tax partner at Anchin. “Under the previous opportunity zone legislation, investing deferred gains into an opportunity zone meant a 10 percent basis step-up if you held the investment for five years,” McHale said. “There was an additional 5 percent basis step-up if you held the investment for seven years before the mandatory gain inclusion event on December 31, 2026.”

Any investments in the initial program made after December 31, 2021, were ineligible for any basis step-ups, McHale added, noting another key benefit of the program was tax-free appreciation on investments held for 10 years.

“The new program retained the 10 percent basis step-up. This starts on the day of your investment and is added to your basis after five years at the same time the gain deferral is recognized. This rolling window enables taxpayers to take advantage of this benefit as long as the program is in existence. The tax-free appreciation for investments held for 10 years has been retained as well,” McHale said.

These changes mean the landscape around qualified opportunity zones has gone to an evergreen format, McHale added.