Features

Jay Madary: Supply, Demand in Check for Midwest Apartment Market

by Kristin Harlow April 4, 2017

The following is a Q&A with Jay Madary, president and CEO of Oak Brook, Ill.-based JVM Realty, regarding the state of the multifamily market in the Midwest. JVM owns and operates Class A and B apartment communities in Midwest markets such as Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City and suburban Chicago. Madary was also quoted in the March issue of Heartland Real Estate Business in an article discussing apartment amenities and property management trends. Heartland Real Estate Business: What is your assessment of the health of secondary and tertiary multifamily markets in the Midwest? Jay Madary: They’re healthy. Supply and demand are in balance, and rents are affordable for residents. When you combine those rents with the strong income levels in the region, you can see there’s room for steady rent growth, unlike some of the primary coastal markets such as San Francisco and New York. From an investment perspective, the lower acquisition costs for apartment communities in the Midwest allow for higher returns than you’ll find in gateway markets. Residents of the Midwest are commonly described as steady and reliable, and that describes the multifamily market in the region as well. It may not have a lot of sizzle in the form of enormous rent …

April 4, 2017

Conference Coverage Features Multifamily Texas Texas & Oklahoma Feature Archive Top Stories

Job Growth, Oil Stability to Spur Houston Multifamily Rebound, Predicts Data Researcher

by Taylor Williams March 30, 2017

Tumbling rents, landlord concessions and weakening levels of absorption have defined Houston’s multifamily market for much of the duration of the oil bust that spanned from late 2014 to mid-2016, but the multifamily market is now on the mend, says a third-party multifamily data analyst. Bruce McClenny, president of Apartment Data Services, which tracks the vital signs of nearly 3,000 multifamily properties nationwide, believes Houston’s multifamily market is about nine months past the rock-bottom point. As the opening speaker at the Interface Houston Multifamily Conference before 170 industry professionals on Tuesday, March 28, McLenny explained why he believes that a turnaround, albeit a slow one, has already begun. “The first six months of 2016 was the bottom, economically,” McLenny said during the conference, which was held March 28 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Houston’s Galleria neighborhood. “Things have gotten better from that moment on. There’s absorption out there. Through the first two months of this year, we had more than 1,900 units absorbed.” In 2016, submarkets on the city’s south and east sides — Pearland West, Baytown, Pasadena, Galveston — fared markedly better than submarkets in other parts of town, according to McLenny. All four of these submarkets attained positive …

March 30, 2017

Features Top Stories

Online Versus Inline: Success Demands Retailers Focus on Enhancing In-Store Experience

by Katie Sloan March 28, 2017

For anyone in the industry, it’s impossible to avoid the topic of online sales and the “dramatic” impact of the internet on traditional brick-and-mortar retail. Many retailers are clearly worried, and others are uncertain about how they should respond to the growth of online retail. That combination of concern and confusion has led to some questionable decision making about how and where to allocate resources. The mainstream media does its part to perpetuate the notion of the online behemoth, with attention-getting headlines and a persistent media narrative that reinforces the internet is taking over mentality. Every time a brand closes stores or cuts jobs, and every time a company announces weaker-than-anticipated sales numbers, the impact of online competition is not only cited, it is more than often blamed. But rhetoric is not reality. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that “e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2016 accounted for 8.4 percent of total sales,” a number that is consistent with the approximately 8 percent figure that ICSC and other organizations have reported in recent years. While that number isn’t stagnant, the growth of online sales as a percentage of overall retail sales has slowed …

March 28, 2017

Bob Kramer, National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care

Features Healthcare Multifamily Seniors Housing Top Stories Western Feature Archive

Seniors Housing Industry Looks for New Ways to Bend Cost Curve, Improve Health Outcomes

by Jeff Shaw March 24, 2017

SAN DIEGO — Breaking down the silos between the traditional real-estate-based seniors housing providers and the growing number of health, wellness and supportive services providers will lead to better health outcomes for residents and slow the long-term growth of medical costs. But it’s a shift that won’t happen overnight. That’s one of the key messages Bob Kramer, founder and CEO of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), aims to deliver. The 2017 NIC Spring Investment Forum, which happened March 22 through March 24 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, drew more than 1,600 industry professionals, a record number for the show, including more than 350 first-time attendees. The title of this year’s program was “Unlocking New Value Through Senior Care Collaboration.” Industry leaders are feeling a sense of urgency to tackle this issue. Five percent of Medicare recipients consume half of the federal program’s total expenditures, or about $60,000 per beneficiary, according to Kramer. By comparison, the bottom 20 percent account of Medicare recipients account for under $1,000 per beneficiary. “In terms of bending the cost curve — a favorite phrase in healthcare reform — the initial target is very much understandably on the high-need, high-cost population. They …

March 24, 2017

Features Texas & Oklahoma Feature Archive Top Stories

Building To Suit Population Growth

by Taylor Williams March 23, 2017

Commercial real estate construction follows increases in population, and Texas has hit a growth spurt. In May 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that five of 11 of the nation’s fastest-growing cities — Georgetown, New Braunfels, Frisco, Pearland and Pflugerville — are in Texas. The state’s metro areas, and the surrounding suburbs fueling this growth, are seeing construction in several sectors. High-end multifamily is popular throughout Texas. In Houston, hotels were being constructed in anticipation of the Super Bowl. In North Dallas, multifamily and retail are expanding to serve corporate growth, while industrial and manufacturing buildings are being constructed to serve transportation hubs south of the Metroplex. “We are seeing a lot of growth all over the state,” says Srinath Pai Kasturi, vice president and general manager of the central Texas division of Cadence McShane Construction. “Over the past four to five years, Texas has been fortunate to have seen a large influx of people from other states, and that has stimulated growth.” Texas added more than 1.8 million jobs from 2004 to 2014 —the most in the United States and 2.5 times California’s total change, according to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ analysis of data from Economic Modeling Specialists, International. …

March 23, 2017

Features Healthcare Top Stories

Duke Realty: Micro Hospitals Lead the Way Among Emerging Trends in Healthcare Sector

by Taylor Williams March 21, 2017

Facing shortages in construction labor and obstacles in originating financing for new projects, developers who specialize in healthcare properties are starting to think smaller, according to a recent study by Indianapolis-based REIT Duke Realty Corp. This means more micro hospitals. Micro hospitals are similar to community and small-town medical facilities — a hybrid of urgent care centers and full-fledged hospitals. They offer significantly fewer inpatient beds than regular hospitals — eight to 12 per facility is average — and typically span between 15,000 and 50,000 square feet. As such, they fit more comfortably into densely populated urban pockets and provide more immediate access to acute and emergency care. With delivery costs that range from $7 million and $30 million, depending on size, micro hospitals represent a cheaper means of financing a regular hospital. What else is driving demand for micro hospitals? According to the study, they offer a convenient, cost-effective alternative to larger hospitals without compromising the quality of care. When considering where to build a micro hospital, developers are encouraged to pinpoint high-visibility sites within 20 miles of a major hospital. This enables them to tap directly into the smaller submarkets for which micro hospitals are intended. “Anticipated changes …

March 21, 2017

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Pennsylvania Supreme Court Takes Up Issue of Reverse Property Tax Appeals Across State

by Haisten Willis March 16, 2017

By Gregory Schaffer Pennsylvania property owners and tenants, who pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, are no doubt aware of the annual deadline to file a property tax appeal. After all, one look at a new tax bill is often enough to make even the most seasoned tax manager scramble to contact their local tax counsel. However, very few taxpayers are aware that the assessment they may have accepted as favorable could easily trigger a reverse appeal filed by the local school district. Assessment appeals filed by the taxing entities, often referred to as reverse appeals, are increasingly common as cash-strapped school districts seek to fill their coffers. Just as a tax manager might view an inflated assessment as a reason to appeal, more and more school districts see potentially under-assessed properties as a much-needed source of additional revenue. To the bane of many taxpayers, this tactic has now reached the city of Philadelphia. Despite undergoing a citywide property revaluation for the 2014 tax year, with another currently slated for 2018, the Philadelphia School District recently decided to begin filing reverse appeals against properties it feels are under-assessed. On Sept. 15, 2016, for the first time, …

March 16, 2017

Features Multifamily Top Stories

M&M: Homeownership Hits 12-Year Low as Young Households Favor Apartments

by Jeff Shaw March 14, 2017

Homeownership rates in the United States have hit a 12-year low due to a combination of younger people’s preference for apartments, a low housing inventory that has inflated sales prices and strong absorption in the multifamily sector, according to a research brief from Marcus & Millichap. Single-family homes are experiencing low inventory compared to demand, with the supply of available homes holding steady for several months. The current supply represents just 3.6 months of sales, a record low, according to the brief. As a result, the median home price increased 7.3 percent on a year-over-year basis to $230,400 in January 2017. The apartment sector, meanwhile, is still seeing a drop in vacancy despite the fact that deliveries are expected to peak this year. Nearly 290,000 apartments were delivered nationally during 2016, but strong absorption still managed to push vacancy down 20 basis points to 3.9 percent. According to the brief, “young households’ increased propensity to rent fuels apartment demand, and the absorption of 294,100 units in 2016 was the fourth highest year on record.” Following this year’s peak, though, Marcus & Millichap predicts new apartment supply will taper off in 2018. Lenders have already begun to tighten the purse strings …

March 14, 2017

Features Top Stories

Interest Rates, Political Unrest Threaten to Jeopardize Health of Commercial Real Estate, Says Economist

by John Nelson March 9, 2017

The U.S. economic expansion continues on, extending its long streak of slow but steady growth. The economy has benefitted from years of stability in both the political and monetary realms, but massive paradigm shifts are underway. These changes are breeding uncertainty, which threaten both overall economic expansion and the commercial real estate industry in a way not seen in years. On the monetary front, years of low and declining interest rates supporting credit markets and asset prices are giving way to a new environment. Rates have risen noticeably since the fall and the Fed is overseeing a tightening cycle. Rising interest rates pose a new challenge to credit conditions and valuations, which has already been reflected in the significant decline in investment volume reported in January by Real Capital Analytics. The sharp rise in interest rates has scuttled the closing of some deals, protracted the closing of others and thrown financing terms for a loop across the board. The larger uncertainty and concern, however, is emanating from the political realm. The new administration has proposed radical policy shifts to immigration, trade, regulations and taxes. Both the amount of proposed policy changes and their severity are resulting in an uptick in …

March 9, 2017

Features Multifamily Top Stories

Interest Rates Are Top Concern for Multifamily Professionals, Capital One Survey Finds

by John Nelson March 7, 2017

BETHESDA, MD. — Concern over potential interest rate hikes is tempering optimism in the multifamily market, according to a recent survey conducted by Capital One Multifamily Finance. Capital One conducted the survey during the NMHC 2017 conference in San Diego in late January. The survey gauges emerging trends and industry insights from multifamily real estate professionals across the country. About 51 percent of multifamily professionals consider rising interest rates to be their biggest challenge in 2017, more than double the 25 percent of respondents who cited rising costs as their greatest concern. Only 5 percent of those surveyed anticipate potential regulation to be their biggest challenge this year. (Percentages are based on 95 responses.) These interest rate concerns may signal the end of the current cycle for the multifamily market as 50 percent of those surveyed believe the market has entered the last few legs of the race, while only 7 percent feel the cycle is in its early stages. Despite market sentiment, significantly more respondents anticipate being buyers than sellers in 2017; 51 percent said that they anticipate being buyers, while 23 percent anticipate being sellers. “While more industry professionals expect to be buyers than sellers in 2017, increasing …

March 7, 2017

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