Tag: acquisition

Apartment Market Tightness, Equtiy Financing Slide Backwards in Latest NMHC Survey

The National Multihousing Council’s (NMHC) latest apartment investment survey out today has market tightness falling to 52 from 68 last quarter. With 50 representing the better vs. worse divide, results show respondents are feeling the bite of new supply plus a bit of seasonal slowdown as well I sense:

NMHC Apartment Investment Survey October 2014
Source: NMHC

While the Sales Volume and Debt Financing measures both improved, Equity Financing also slipped. As you can see from the charts above the results tend to be noisy and I suspect that with the survey format it carries a few behavioral biases as well. You can see that the world was ending according to Continue reading Apartment Market Tightness, Equtiy Financing Slide Backwards in Latest NMHC Survey

Who is buying all those properties and what does it mean for the apartment building investment cycle?

Mark Hickey of CoStar put out a piece looking at who was responsible for the near record $65.8B of apartment building investment in 2012. CoStar’s numbers show that private owners/developers did just about half of all acquisitions last year and institutions were in for 12%, both near their recent trends. REITs on the other hand increased their share by a third, responsible for 12% of sales volume last year.

Interestingly the sellers were pretty much the same groups, except REITs who were the largest net buyers last year.

Apartment Building Investment by REITs 2004 to 2012

Last year REITs raised 15x the equity they did in 2008 (and 20x the total capital). Up against pockets that deep Continue reading Who is buying all those properties and what does it mean for the apartment building investment cycle?

The 5 Most Important Property Tax Questions for Apartment Building Investing

Property Taxes can be one of the largest fixed costs in apartment building investing. Properly accounting for them when running the numbers on a potential purchase (called the ‘underwriting’ process) can make the difference between a nicely cash flowing property and an expensive headache. Multi-Housing News has a good article with the five key questions investors should have answered before making an apartment building investment:

  1. How often are values reassessed? Is there an automatic reassessment triggered by a transaction?
  2. What is the exact millage rate? How are they set? How often do they change?
  3. Are there limitations to the increases in assessed values during the hold period (a la Prop 13 in California)?
  4. What is the timing of the assessments and when exactly are bills due?
  5. What is the appeal process and how long does it typically last?

Don’t let this happen to your deal: Continue reading The 5 Most Important Property Tax Questions for Apartment Building Investing