Conference Coverage

ATLANTA — Shortened attention spans and the desire for instant gratification are a couple of the changing consumer behaviors that impact the multifamily operations industry. Karen Key, a president with Houston-based Asset Living, said that 75 percent of consumers expect a response time in less than 24 hours from a business. Twenty percent expect a response time within minutes. “If you’re missing that mark and someone else is responding to them, whether it’s a client, prospect or resident, you’ve lost them. They’re gone.” Key’s remarks came during the operations panel at the 2023 InterFace Multifamily Southeast conference, which took place Thursday, Nov. 30 in Atlanta. France Media and Southeast Real Estate Business hosted the event at the Westin Buckhead hotel. Ed Wolff, president of California-based LeaseLock, moderated the panel, which was entitled “What’s Changed and What’s Not Changed in Terms of Occupancy, Rental Rates and Operations?” Key emphasized that many of these changes resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. “When the pandemic happened, everyone got spoiled in terms of having everything at their fingertips. They were tied to a computer all day every day,” she said. As such, Asset Living’s use of social media as an advertising tool increased significantly ever …

By Taylor Williams ATLANTA — Depending on the era in which you came of age and the general experiences you’ve had in life, the notion that “things can always get worse” can be easy to endorse. As it pertains to commercial lending and borrowing, the consensus narratives that have prevailed ever since the Federal Reserve began jacking up interest rates in early 2022 have largely followed the same script: “Hunker down.” “Survive till ’25.” “Delay and defer.” In other words, do whatever you have to do to avoid the sting of the 11 interest rate hikes totaling 500-plus basis points that have been enacted over the past 20 months, raising the federal funds rate from near zero percent to its current target range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent. According to data compiled by Walker & Dunlop, the average all-in interest rate on a 10-year, fixed-rate Fannie Mae mortgage — assuming a conservative structure of 55 percent loan-to-value — is roughly 6.25 percent. Since rate hikes began, multifamily lenders across various markets have stated that leverage ratios in the neighborhood of 55 to 60 percent have become the norm, all other factors being held equal. Cloud of Uncertainty Despite some seemingly …