ATLANTA — Investors in the multifamily sector are having trouble getting deals done in 2023, and 2024 isn’t looking to start out much better. The culprit is the bid-ask spread — the gap between what sellers believe their property is worth and what buyers are willing to pay. That’s according to a panel of multifamily investors, several of whom described transacting in the present environment to be a “slog.” The panel, titled “Investment Outlook: When will the Bid-Ask Gap Narrow, the Market Stabilize and Transactions Resume in Earnest?,” was held yesterday at France Media’s InterFace Multifamily Southeast conference at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta. The panel included Brian Grant, senior vice president of acquisitions of Equity Residential; John Leonard, first vice president/regional manager of Marcus & Millichap; Eddy O’Brien, managing partner and co-founder of Blaze Capital Partners; Matt Trammell, chief financial officer of Wood Partners; Kristina Lynn, senior director, of housing and alternative investments in the Americas at Nuveen Real Estate; and moderator Paul Berry, president and chief operating officer of Mesa Capital Partners, who recently joined the firm from CBRE. Berry kicked off the discussion by noting that “the bid-ask spread affects all of us.” While he noted that …
