Acquisitions

ATLANTA — The investment sales market for the affordable housing sector remains muted for one overarching reason: volatility. Cory Sams, executive managing director of GREA (Global Real Estate Advisors), said that a lack of certainty, especially in the capital markets, is giving buyers and sellers of affordable housing properties pause. “The worst thing for a deal is [interest rates] constantly moving around,” she said. “When they were running up and down, every deal fell apart.” Doug Childers, senior managing director of JLL, estimated that affordable housing transaction volume fell 40 percent in 2023 compared with the prior year. For context, multifamily investment sales overall declined by 61 percent year-over-year in 2023, according to MSCI Real Assets (formerly Real Capital Analytics). Childers and Sams made their comments during the investment sales panel of Interface Affordable Housing Southeast, an information and networking conference held at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta on Thursday, May 9. Interface Conference Group and Southeast Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business hosted the event, which drew approximately 170 industry professionals from across the region. Brian Flanagan, regional director of RBC Community Investments, moderated the investment sales panel. Fittingly, Flanagan kicked off the investment sales discussion by asking the …