When it comes to commercial real estate development, thoughtfully curated teams are critical to success. “It’s important that the extended team works well with each other, so they can deliver results for clients,” explains Mark Fletcher, director of Strategic Partnering at Bohler, a land development design and consulting firm. Developers don’t want to work with a variety of disjointed processes and personalities. They want to work with one team, a multi-discipline team that effectively manages time and resources, focusing on streamlined processes and speed to market. This sort of team unity promotes both cohesiveness and consistency in outcomes. Building a great design and consulting team means having the property developer’s end goals in mind from the very start of the process: dependability, speed to market and turnkey solutions. The importance of fostering cohesion extends to finding an architect to optimize the building and a contractor to strategize materials and phasing. It may be necessary to engage an attorney who can work well with the team to address land use and zoning. Finally, the right site design and consulting firm can streamline communications, maintain timelines and entitlements and keep the project moving forward. Here’s how Bohler’s approach to assembling a team …
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M&T Realty Capital Corp. is beginning 2022 with ambitious plans to increase its multifamily financings as part of an effort to double its real estate loan volume over the next two to three years. To achieve those goals, it is leveraging a new leadership structure and a recently announced strategic partnership with the Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp. M&T Realty Capital, M&T Bank’s commercial mortgage banking subsidiary, recorded $5.1 billion in loan volume in 2021, a level that was just below its high watermark of $5.2 billion in 2019, says Michael Berman, CEO of M&T Realty Capital. Multifamily loans made up of the lion’s share of financings, he adds, and the sector provides a significant growth opportunity going forward. “Multifamily is a hot a sector right now — everyone is trying to invest in it,” he says. “It’s just an extraordinarily healthy asset class because of its supply and demand dynamics.” Indeed, the U.S. apartment market enjoyed a banner year in 2021 across all measures. Investment volume reached a record $335.3 billion, nearly 75 percent above the record volume of $193.1 billion posted in 2019, according to commercial real estate brokerage CBRE. Meanwhile, renters absorbed 617,500 apartment units in 2021, …
The famed stability of healthcare and medical office building (MOB) real estate continues in 2022, with the Midwest acting as a microcosm for the sector’s trends and challenges nationwide. Adapting to complement large healthcare system needs, adding urgent care centers and keeping costs low are some of the main concerns for brokers this space. Five healthcare/MOB brokers sat down with REBusinessOnline to discuss what is influencing the sector. Michael Kalil, chief operating officer and director of brokerage, and Jeff Cavazos, senior vice president, NAI Farbman, Southfield, Mich.; Matthew Gregory, senior VP office brokerage, and Michael Simpson, president, NAI Ohio Equities, Columbus, Ohio; and Doug Taatjes, partner/associate broker, NAI Wisinski of West Michigan, Grand Rapids, Mich. weighed in on the present and future of healthcare/MOB real estate. REBusiness: What trends are we going to see in healthcare in 2022? What factors might influence further investment in this field? Matt Gregory: Improvements to building infrastructure will be the most significant trend in 2022. There will be a push toward better HVAC filtration, higher cleaning standards and so forth. Mike Simpson: Yes, I think the healthy building initiative is something that’s going to pick up more momentum this year. Doug Taatjes: In our …
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Single-Family/Build-to-Rent: Changing Renter Demographics Fuel Growth
Demand for all forms of housing has been on the rise in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue in 2022. One segment of the market that is attracting significant attention is single-family/build-to-rent (SFR/BTR), as a series of economic and demographic shifts increase the attractiveness of an alternative to traditional apartments. Developers are ramping up activity on thousands of new units, particularly in the high-growth southern U.S. markets. Dozens of projects totaling more than $1.5 billion sold in 2021. Meanwhile, billions of dollars of debt and equity capital continue to move into this increasingly attractive investment class. Northmarq’s National Multifamily 2022 Outlook covers the record-setting momentum that multifamily properties across the United States saw last year and projects what the market may see in 2022. Northmarq’s full report is available here (with further rundowns on factors like the overall economy, rent trends, the investment market and financing climate). Their analysis on the SFR/BTR market below breaks down the trends and opportunities for growth in this burgeoning sector. Reasons for Growth Several factors are prompting the development of SFR/BTR. A primary influence is the changing mix of renters; today’s renters are generally older and more affluent than in the past. These …
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Web-Based Appraisal Tool Supports Massive Increase in Demand for Multifamily Valuations
Multifamily appraisers are extremely busy as investor interest in the sector is at an all-time high. “In terms of appraisal professionals, there is a supply and demand issue,” explains Meghan Czechowski, managing director and valuation lead for Apprise by Walker & Dunlop. She notes that the industry has greater demand for valuation than it has qualified appraisers. “Apprise is ensuring that we can support our appraisal staff and our local market experts with a tech-enabled process so that they can do their jobs more efficiently and get the values (and market information in general) into our clients’ hands as quickly as possible,” she adds. Czechowski focuses on the ways that web-based multifamily valuations can be streamlined to create a faster and more complete picture of properties. Multifamily experts need information on properties/parcels that comes from “multiple industry-standard resources such as Yardi, REIS, RCA and public record aggregators.” Parcel-level information, unit mix metrics, sale leads, land records and site assessment information are all available through Apprise’s platform via a single sign on to a dashboard that reflects information that is constantly being updated. This means that when an expert uses this platform and picks up the phone to confirm about …
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Web-Based Multifamily Valuation Enhances Speed, Builds Better Predictions
The future of multifamily valuation requires flexibility and the use of technology to process data faster and more reliably. Meghan Czechowski, managing director and valuation lead for Apprise by Walker & Dunlop, spoke to Finance Insight about why multifamily valuations in particular are well suited to a web-based machine learning approach, resulting in faster appraisals with increased reliability. Finance Insight: How does the Walker & Dunlop Apprise program differ from traditional residential valuation programs? Czechowski: We’re focused on multifamily with our tech-enabled process. Most appraisal reports on the commercial side (multifamily included, that is, five units and up) are completed using a web-based database, and those databases are typically blank slates. When you’re entering sale comparables, rent comparables or other data, most people are starting from scratch and usually using an analyst to record that comparable information that then feeds into a database. The Apprise team of appraisal experts uses our Apprise application, which is a proprietary web-based system. It uses the property record database; therefore, it is not a blank slate. It has over 2.5 million multifamily records flowing into it from a public record aggregator and various industry resources like REIS, RCA and Yardi, using direct integration and …
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Investment, Financing in Seniors Housing Driven by Property Performance
If there were one phrase to summarize the attitude of seniors housing investors and lenders in 2022, it would be “cautiously optimistic.” How quickly can the seniors housing industry hope to recover in the face of continued difficulties? What is likely to drive the financing and investment market? While difficulties due to COVID and labor shortages continue to create challenges in terms of immediate occupancy, strong demand fundamentals and a healthy appetite for seniors housing investments indicate a return to normality is possible in 2022, according to Brandon Taseff, senior vice president, and Lee Delaveris, vice president on KeyBank Real Estate Capital’s team. Headwinds, Tailwinds in Seniors Housing The headwinds for seniors housing investment and development should not be dismissed, Taseff indicates. Staffing issues, the Omicron variant, slow occupancy growth and sluggish absorption of senior living units have made for slow going in the market with acquisition, development and financing activity remaining below normal levels. 2021 saw many positive factors to counter these impediments: widespread vaccination, a rebound in occupancy and a strengthened capital market interest in seniors housing. 2022 may be able to continue this momentum, explains Delaveris. “There are a lot of good reasons to think the industry will …
The multifamily investment sales sector had well-documented success in 2021 with a record volume of over $220 billion in transaction activity. Factors driving competition for transactions within the sector included: increasing home prices, widespread interest in renting and the easing of COVID-19 restrictions bringing renters back into the nation’s cities, all of which drove the average, nationwide multifamily occupancy rate above 97 percent. With firmly rooted fundamentals, investor interest across the spectrum of multifamily has been intense. Traditionally popular core investment products (stabilized and value-add assets located in primary and secondary markets) were the clear winners with investors. Some multifamily REIT stocks increased by 75 to 100 percent in 2021, explains Arthur Milston, senior managing director with NAI Global and co-head of the company’s Capital Markets Group. Milston sat down with REBusinessOnline to explain where NAI Global sees growth and opportunities in 2022. REBusiness: Who are the primary investor groups acquiring multifamily? What types/locations are they attracted to? Milston: Historically, multifamily has always had very fragmented ownership compared to other asset classes. Currently, the dominant players are the large aggregators of product, whether it be REITs or institutional investors that are buying, typically in conjunction with an operating partner. Pension …
The small balance multifamily lending industry is antiquated, leaving thousands of prospective borrowers behind in a booming market. Multifamily property owners need access to fast, reliable quotes and a streamlined approach to financing. The current industry practice of quoting from rate sheets does not present a holistic or dynamic picture for borrowers or lenders. Walker & Dunlop is offering an alternative approach with a new digital lending platform that utilizes machine learning to quickly provide customized quotes for small balance multifamily acquisition and refinance loans. The rapid pace of lending means that borrowers need strategic partnerships with small balance loan experts that provide personalized customer experience backed by the data science capabilities to pull comparables, as well as online tools that can both streamline and inform processes. Sponsored: As the #1 multifamily lender in the U.S., Walker & Dunlop is launching a digital lending platform that will deliver tailored quotes in minutes for acquisitions and refinances. The platform uses machine learning powered by millions of data points from Walker & Dunlop’s proprietary property database to offer clients accuracy, transparency and confidence from kickoff to closing. The State of Small Balance Lending Small multifamily properties account for roughly 85 percent of …
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2021 Multifamily Housing Market Outlook Shaped by Growth Trends, Housing Prices
COVID Disrupts Markets Again The country began breathing a sigh of relief in the second quarter of 2021 as U.S. GDP returned to pre-pandemic levels. With a substantial part of the U.S. population vaccinated, the unemployment rate plummeted, schools began preparing for in-person instruction and restaurants were back in business, again surpassing grocery sales in volume. But just as things seemed to be returning to “normal,” the delta variant of COVID began to spread. New COVID cases turned into rising COVID deaths by August,[1] disrupting supply and demand chains. Consumer confidence, which had been rising since hitting a low in April 2020, dipped to a new low point in August; consumer spending stalled[2], and fewer people traveled by plane[3] or returned to the office[4] that month. While economic growth remains positive, the delta variant, now accounting for almost all new COVID cases[5], again introduced market uncertainty, resulting in a 4 percent drop in stock market pricing in September. However, as COVID cases began declining in mid-September, stock prices began to rise, erasing the September drop in October, and resulting in a 22.6 percent gain for the year. Overall, economists maintain strong economic growth expectations of 6.1 percent GDP growth for …