Last week the Internal Revenue Service provided Opportunity Zoneinvestors with some relief.

Opportunity Zone rules provide 180 days for investors to rollover capital gains into an Opportunity Zone fund (QOF). Investorswhose 180-day period would have ended between April 1, 2020, andDecember 30, 2020, can now make their investment until December 31,2020 after the IRS released a notice last week.

"From a real estate investor standpoint, this change hasrecognized both the challenging nature of both the market we are inas well as the one we left behind," according to Steve Sharkey andJerry Neuman, partners at DLA Piper. "While today's market has boththe prospect of declining values and uncertainty of future uses,which could delay closings, Q4 2019 was nearly the opposite with animbalance between pricing and cap rates, making finalizing dealsdifficult."