Are We Looking At An Extended CRE Cycle? What About Apartments?

Ed.: I’ve added the vertical lines indicating peaks in Rent Growth and Unemployment

The Bullets

  • Comparing this recovery to any other post-war is not meaningful
  • There are no statistical constraints on a real estate cycle
  • The apartment cycle will be driven by three types of demand that many underestimate

In his latest Ahead of the Curve piece, Richard Barkham, Ph.D., CBRE Global’s Chief Economist explores whether the commercial real estate cycle turns down in 2018 or  extends beyond for a year or two. His conclusion is a version of Harry Truman’s Continue reading Are We Looking At An Extended CRE Cycle? What About Apartments?

Apartment Financing Hits An Air Pocket in Latest NMHC Survey

Apartment Building Investment Lending Conditions July 2015

The National Multifamily Housing Council’s NMHC Quarterly Survey is out now and three of the four categories held fairly steady but the availability of  debt financing dropped twenty five points from sixty to thirty five. A reading below fifty indicates worsening conditions and the report on the survey said that with Continue reading Apartment Financing Hits An Air Pocket in Latest NMHC Survey

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

Apartment Building Investors: Everything You Need To Know About AZ Water Rights, Parts 1, 2 & 3

UPDATE Oct. 14: See below for Part 3-

UPDATE Sept. 24: See below for Part 2-

Apartment building investment broker ABI Multifamily’s Research Director, Thomas M. Brophy is out with part 1 of a pretty in-depth ‘overview’ of water rights in Arizona this week (Part 1 of 3). This is important not just because most of AZ is a desert (duh) but because Phoenix is expected to grow by the size of Denver over the next twenty-five years (See Phoenix population to add 2.6 million by 2040, housing supply not keeping up). They’re going to need a lot more apartments but  the biggest limiting factor will be the ability to provide water for that many new tenants.

Water rights critical for Arizona apartment building investors
Source: ABI Multifamily.

Brophy begins with the background so that as the story unfolds we will understand how things got to be the way they are, and most importantly, how to make sure your residents aren’t walking to the town well every morning with a big jug on their heads. Not light reading but it just might give you an edge- See part 1 here: The Motions, Notions and Commotions of Water!  Part 1: Arizona Water, an Overview.

Water Rights for AZ apartment building investors
Source: ABI Multifamily

Part 2 is Continue reading Apartment Building Investors: Everything You Need To Know About AZ Water Rights, Parts 1, 2 & 3

More Apartment Renters on the way?

Are there yet more new renters on the way? More new demand for apartment building investors? Bill McBride over at Calculated Risk has a piece out today on the latest Mortgage Monitor from Black Knight. Reams of data all organized nicely into charts and the good news is that the percent of of mortgages with negative equity has dropped to 10% but…

The numbers on mortgages that have been modified are in far worse shape and the story can be told in two charts. The first (on page 20 of the Monitor) showing that there are almost two million modified loans facing interest rate resets, meaning that the mortgage payment could be going up. The second chart completes the picture:

40 percent of modified mortgages have negative equity
Source: Black Knight Financial Services

The title of the chart says it all: More than 40% of all modified mortgages are underwater and another Continue reading More Apartment Renters on the way?

5 Key Trends from the ULI Report for Apartment Building Investors and Commercial Real Estate Pros

The Urban Land Institute/PriceWaterhouseCoopers annual report on Emerging Trends for Real Estate 2014 was released last week and apartment building investors and commercial real estate pros have some good things to look forward to next year. Note that this post refers to the Americas version of the report with separate sections on Canadian and Latin American markets but they also publish Asia-Pacific and European editions as well. This is the 35th edition of the report is it’s based on individual  interviews or surveys from more than 1,000 investors, fund managers, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers, advisers, and consultants.

Here are the 5 key trends we should all be aware of with my comments:

  • Survey participants continue to rank private direct real estate investment as having the best investment prospects. Pretty expected from this group but the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) recently released its property performance index for the third quarter of 2013 and on a trailing 12-month basis, the index’s return was 11.0 percent, split about 50/50 between income and appreciation. A pretty nice return compared to fixed income rates and a much safer looking bet than buying equities at their all time highs.
  • Dependence on cap rate compression to drive value is being replaced by an emphasis on asset management. Especially in the 24 hour gateway markets apartment building cap rates are about as low as they can get (well until you look at Vancouver BC) so property performance has to come from actually making the property perform. You also have the problem of what to do with your proceeds if you do sell, as you would be reinvesting right back into the same cap rate market that you sold in… unless you changed to a higher cap rate sector, suburban strip centers anyone?
  • Opportunities to develop property are finally appearing in sectors other than multifamily. CBRE Econometrics had a piece out last week showing that large (> 350k sf) warehouse properties are being snapped up as fast as they’re being built. Maybe developers who moved over to doing apartments the last few years will move back to their home sectors and ease off on the new supply of multifamily units.
  • Value-added investment ranked highest in terms of investment strategy; distressed properties and distressed debt ranked last. We were licking our chops a few years ago waiting for RTC 2.0 fire sales to begin and while we were able take down some bank owned inventory, the anticipated tsunami of defaults on commercial loans never materialized. At this point most everything has been extended and pretended into performing status or sold off and so it’s back to making money the old fashion way: Finding and/or creating value.
  • Both equity investors and lenders are widening their search for business to include secondary markets and niche property types. This will be a double edged sword for investors who are focused on those secondary and tertiary markets as debt financing will be more available but there will also be more competition from sophisticated outsiders with deep pockets. The key will be to make them your buyers so dig in, find the right properties and tie them up quickly.

Emerging Trends Barometer for Apartment Building Investors and Commercial Real Estate 2014

As always with real estate, sectors and markets are so distinct from one another it’s almost pointless to generalize as the chart above attempts to do so next week I’ll dive into the apartment sector to see what gems they’ve unearthed. Meanwhile for the Continue reading 5 Key Trends from the ULI Report for Apartment Building Investors and Commercial Real Estate Pros

Show Me The Apartment Building Investment Markets, part II. (Skate to where the puck is going)

Just after I hit Publish on the top markets for population and job growth piece called: Skate to where the apartment building investment puck is going I found a great Richard Florida Atlantic piece for this month’s edition called The Boom Towns and Ghost Towns of the New Economy looking into the changes of fortune for US markets since the crash five years ago.

The recovery has been good (What crash? good in a few) in some areas, seemingly non-existent in others and in many a slow grinding process that has yet been unable to return to pre-crash levels. The first thing that everyone should look at is job growth but Florida looked deeper into High Wage growth around the country:

High wage growth for apartment markets. More at www.ashworthpartners.com
Click for full size image. Source: Atlantic Online.

 

And then looking forward into Continue reading Show Me The Apartment Building Investment Markets, part II. (Skate to where the puck is going)

Skate to where the apartment building investment puck is going: Top US markets for future population and job growth.

A lot of the usual suspects when it comes to multifamily markets have moved pretty far into their cycles and if your home area is like ours ti’s getting pretty fully priced. With our value investor mindset that means we’re looking for the next markets to do well over the coming 10-20 years. As apartment building investors we say:

Show Me The Apartment Building Investment Markets

Fortunately two different sources provided data and maps to answer Jerry’s demand. The first is from the NAHB (the National Association of Home Builders) in an Eye On Housing piece called Uneven Aging. The report actually has two maps, the first showing the 2000 to 2010 growth in the Continue reading Skate to where the apartment building investment puck is going: Top US markets for future population and job growth.