Tag: buying opportunities

The secret about home ‘affordability’ they don’t want you to know- Good for Apartment Building Investment

Home prices have crashed. Interest rates are at all-time lows. If you’re in the market to buy, homes are more affordable than they’ve been in years. Or are they?

From a WSJ report posted by Motley Fool:

The median down payment in nine major U.S. cities rose to 22% last year on properties purchased through conventional mortgages. … That percentage doubled in three years and represents the highest median down payment since the data were first tracked in 1997.

The average down payment for a US home is now 20%

Up 22%! yowza! More from MF:

The average home in America now sells for $272,000, so a 20% down payment totals about $55,000. The median household net worth, meanwhile, was $67,000 in 2010, suggesting the average homeowner needs to tie up a tremendous amount of their net worth in a down payment. Can you really Continue reading The secret about home ‘affordability’ they don’t want you to know- Good for Apartment Building Investment

Private Equity Has Too Much Money to Spend on REOs-to-Rentals Via Bloomberg

An interesting piece from Bloomberg entitled: Private Equity Has Too Much Money to Spend on Homes talking about how hard it is for large funds to buy foreclosed homes in bulk and turn them into rentals reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my private equity clients who was consulted by Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital about doing just that (and he said don’t).

“Funds planning to invest more than $6 billion to buy and rent foreclosed homes are finding it easy to raise money. The difficulty is spending it… The folks that raised capital are worried about under- accumulating properties and how to get capital out in an efficient way, Richard Ford, a managing director in the real estate investment banking group at Jefferies Group Inc., said in a telephone interview. A lot’s being raised. Less than $2 billion of institutional capital has been spent.”

It seems like between the banks’ increasing Continue reading Private Equity Has Too Much Money to Spend on REOs-to-Rentals Via Bloomberg

Portland OR one of top US cities for job growth- Good for apartment building investments

Portland’s recovery in jobs driven by the return of tech and the lure of its funky coolness (see Portlandia) is noted in Kiplinger’s slide show on the 8 Cities with Surprising Job Growth where they’re expecting 130,000 new jobs in the next five years:

Portland to add 130,000 jobs- good for apartment building investment

“After devastating job losses in the recession, Portland has made a spectacular recovery, fueled by the tech mini-boom and the area’s attractiveness to young people. Anchored by Intel and its 16,000 employees, Portland will maintain its moniker as the Silicon Forest for its more than 1,200 high-tech firms, most of them small to medium-size.

High tech will continue to be the fastest-growing sector, but Continue reading Portland OR one of top US cities for job growth- Good for apartment building investments

Is the Decline in Cap Rates Coming to an End for Apartment Building Investments?

In a piece just out today from Reis Reports says that: “We have seen declining cap rates fueled by a variety of key factors such as declining interest rates, risk-aversion in the wake of the recession with investors training their sights on what they perceive to be a less-risky property type, and the improvement in property fundamentals, especially in the apartment sector.”

Cap rate stabilizing for apartment building investments

But: “With the sale of high-quality assets dominating the marketplace, this has fueled the ongoing disconnect in pricing between buyers and sellers, preventing many assets that are not of the highest quality from trading. With sellers taking their cues from current market statistics, they are being relatively aggressive regarding the prices that they are willing to accept to consummate a transaction. However, frustrated buyers feel that many assets should not command the same premium that the highest-quality assets currently command in the market and consequently buyers are unwilling to pay such vertiginous prices.”

What are you seeing in your markets?

 

Is now a good time to make Apartment Building Investments?

MHN Online has an interview with Dean Henry, president of Legacy Partners Residential, one of the big apartment building investment trusts (REITs). What I like is that he speaks in bullet points, just the way I think! Here’s my exec sum (in bullet points) of his bullet points:

Now is the time for Apartment Building Investment

“There are several important reasons why now is a great time to acquire existing multifamily assets. Let’s start with demand and supply:

Two Key Factors for Apartment Building Investment Growth.

1) The availability of attractive financing. Plus, the spread between fixed-rate financing and actual year one cap rates is certainly the widest that it’s been in recent history, perhaps ever. (There’s rumor that there was a bigger spread during the Roman Empire, but that may just be an old wives’ tale.)

availability of attractive financing drives multifamily business

From a macro perspective, the spreads between the treasury indexes and the premium on multifamily interest rates will almost certainly widen in the near term, but cap rates should remain stable in Class-C properties. They will probably continue to compress to a certain degree for Class-B assets.

2) Job growth Continue reading Two Key Factors for Apartment Building Investment Growth.

Why now is the right time for CRE and Apartment Building Investment. Video via Tom Barrack at Colony Capital

Tom is one of my mentors and I follow what he’s doing closely to learn from a pro in apartment building investing. Here’s a video 3fer with Tom on why now is the time, if you have any contrarian testosterone as he puts it (in other words you are a true value investor). See also my notes below with the exec sum in bold.

1st Video:

Tom Barrack on Commercial Real Estate and Apartment Building Investment

Tom Barrack on CNBC last week

Stock markets rise and fall, but investors with a long-term view will make money, real estate investor Tom Barrack of Colony Capital is a “slow money guy”.  Barrack has $27 billion invested in real estate and $45 billion in assets around the world.

Overall in the US

Where I think we are is actually a great Continue reading Why now is the right time for CRE and Apartment Building Investment. Video via Tom Barrack at Colony Capital

Pathfinder Buys REO Multifamily Complex Near Seattle for $5.1M Via MHN Online. 78 units @ $65.4k+/unit

San Diego-based Pathfinder Partners LLC makes Apartment Building Investment in Seattle area.

Seattle Area Apartment Building Investment

San Diego-based Pathfinder Partners LLC has acquired the View at Redondo, a 78-unit apartment property in Federal Way, south of Seattle. The apartment complex, built on a …. [Cut to the chase]

Key Concept:

“We believe there are opportunities throughout the major markets in the western United States to invest capital in high-quality projects with distressed or fatigued ownership that will result in significant returns,” Lorne Polger, senior managing director of Pathfinder Partners, tells MHN. “To that end, Pathfinder focuses on smaller apartment building investment, sized below the radar of the largest institutional buyers.”

The company’s strategy, Polger adds, is to buy the loan on a small property that needs finishing, has a large vacancy, or is beset by other issues. “These are typically transactions that need to be concluded very quickly, on an all-cash basis,” he says. “We have a track record of closing this type of deal in 15 to 20 days, and frequently get the call when a financial institution is seeking to conclude a challenging deal quickly.”

A very good strategy indeed.

Increasing Sources of Multifamily Rehab Funding Spur Value-add Projects.

3-4% 10yr bridge money for apartment building investment and rehab “coming out of the woodwork”. See the whole article here: Capital Streams Grow for Rehab

Apartment Building Investment MFE Mag