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Southeast Feature Archive

Conference CoverageFeaturesIndustrialNorth CarolinaSoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Inland Ports Serve As Vital Link in Supply Chain for Industrial Users, Say InterFace Panelists

by John Nelson

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Inland ports are a growing transportation option in the national supply chain. These facilities provide users — including automotive suppliers, retailers, manufacturers and agricultural producers — an option to import and export their wares to seaports via shipping containers by rail as opposed to trucking their products directly to a port terminal. One of the more prominent inland ports in the country is Inland Port Greer in Upstate South Carolina. The facility’s anchor client is BMW, which operates its mega manufacturing campus in nearby Spartanburg, S.C. Class I freight railroad operator Norfolk Southern Corp. provides rail services from the inland port to the Port of Charleston. Brian Gwin, senior industrial development manager for Norfolk Southern, said that when the railroad operator and the South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) established Inland Port Greer in 2013, it was apparent almost immediately that they had a behemoth on their hands. “We knew it was going to be mostly BMW, but we designed Inland Port Greer for 50,000 lifts a year,” said Gwin, referring to the number of shipping containers moved on or off Norfolk Southern trains at the inland port. According to multiple media outlets, the inland port exceeded 100,000 …

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Conference CoverageFeaturesIndustrialNorth CarolinaSoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Industrial Investors Are More Selective in Wake of Rising Interest Rates, Say InterFace Panelists

by John Nelson

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Despite strong fundamentals and a plethora of buyers waiting to transact, the industrial sector is experiencing dwindling sales as the industry is still reeling from the impact of rising interest rates. The U.S. industrial sector recorded $82 billion in sales volume in 2023, a 46 percent year-over-year decline and the lowest sales volume in about six years, according to data from Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. Newmark tallies the first three months of the year totaling $16.9 billion in U.S. industrial sales volume, which would be the seventh consecutive quarter of annualized declines. Michael Brennan, co-founder, chairman and managing principal of Brennan Investment Group, said that the rising cost of debt inherently makes values a moving target even in a healthy sector like industrial real estate, especially with such a massive upswing in interest rates over a short time frame. “Interest rates are the No. 1 problem for real estate,” said Brennan. “Buyers and sellers can’t see eye to eye. And make no mistake, prices went down, though maybe not as much as we thought they would have.” The data backs Brennan up as the average price per square foot was recorded at $130 at the end …

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Affordable HousingConference CoverageDevelopmentFeaturesMultifamilySoutheast Feature Archive

Construction Experts Emphasize Teamwork as Key to Meeting Affordable Housing Building Standards

by Jeff Shaw

ATLANTA — In order to satisfy long-term affordability commitments, builders and designers of affordable housing must be well educated about the sector’s exacting design and construction rules, which are typically driven by the source of a project’s funding. A panel of construction experts speaking at the InterFace Affordable Housing Southeast conference held Thursday, May 9 at Cobb Galleria Centre shared insights about how their industry is meeting these standards today. The inaugural conference hosted by France Media’s InterFace Conference Group and Southeast Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business drew approximately 170 industry professionals. Energy efficiency, teamwork and accessibility were three themes running through the discussion. Accessibility in multifamily construction refers to features that enable people with disabilities or limited mobility to navigate common areas and individual units comfortably and safely. Many of these building features are required by various laws. “Get your consultants, architects and contractors to help you put the deal together,” advised Ross Haynes, chief executive officer of Roswell, Georgia-based Community Construction Group. The company focuses on construction and renovation of affordable housing projects.  “That team is there to understand the code requirements that affect the job, including energy programs and accessibility,” added Haynes. Specific energy-efficiency requirements for affordable housing vary. …

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AcquisitionsAffordable HousingConference CoverageFeaturesGeorgiaMultifamilySoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Volatility Disrupts Investment Sales Activity in Affordable Housing Market, Says InterFace Panel

by John Nelson

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 …

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Build-to-RentFeaturesNorth CarolinaSingle-Family RentalSoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Single-Family Rental Communities Suffer Excessive Taxation

by John Nelson

By Gib Laite, Esq. of Williams Mullen Multifamily investors are accustomed to paying property taxes based on an assessor’s opinion of their asset’s income-based market value. But for the growing number of developers and investors assembling communities of single-family homes and townhomes for rent, tax assessment is more complex and potentially troublesome. The difficulty for these taxpayers is that most assessors shun the income approach to valuing single-family rental properties. In the following paragraphs, we examine the roots of this common assessor stance, and explore strategies that may help taxpayers argue for a more predictable, apartment-like treatment for their single-family rental communities. Similar, but different Multifamily construction has delivered a tremendous volume of apartment properties over the past decade. Once stabilized, these assets have been relatively simple to value by relying on market rents, occupancy, expenses, and cap rates. On the heels of this apartment construction, the nation is seeing a proliferation of investor-backed, single-family construction and acquisitions of large blocks of homes and townhouses for use as rental properties. This may take the form of constructing a multitude of homes or townhomes in a single development. Alternatively, it may involve the acquisition of many existing homes or townhomes in …

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FeaturesSeniors HousingSoutheast Feature Archive

Know What Your Consumers Want and Expect, Advise Active Adult Developers

by John Nelson

By Matt Valley DALLAS — The success or failure of an active adult community hinges on whether the operator can deliver on its valuation proposition, and tenants are willing to pay a premium if their lifestyle expectations are met. That’s one of the key takeaways from an active adult panel discussion that took place March 6 during the 2024 NIC Spring Conference at the Omni Dallas Hotel. Prospective tenants in this real estate niche are experienced, sophisticated consumers who know when they are being sold a bill of goods. They know if leasing people aren’t being sincere, said Robert May, managing director of Avenida Partners, a national real estate development firm with offices in Newport Beach, California, and Nashville, Tennessee. “They come to our communities for the first time knowing a whole lot more about us than we do about them because of the internet, because of social media, because of that senior network that’s out there,” explained May. “The brand is everything. It’s what they see, it’s what they hear, and they’ve got to feel it. They’ve got to feel that you’re really there to deliver that value proposition, that lifestyle that they are looking for.” For traditional multifamily …

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Conference CoverageDevelopmentFeaturesGeorgiaMultifamilySoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

New Multifamily Starts to Slow to a Crawl in 2024, Say InterFace Panelists

by John Nelson

ATLANTA — Multifamily developers are bracing for the uncertainty of 2024 as their projects are delivering into a landscape where new supply is outpacing demand by a significant margin. In the third quarter, a total of 114,000 new multifamily units were delivered in the United States compared to 82,100 absorbed, according to research from CBRE. The absorption figure is technically rebounding as it represents the highest quarterly figure since early 2022, but there is still a sizeable delta compared to supply growth. The trailing four-quarter total for U.S. multifamily deliveries stands at 376,500 units, which CBRE reports is the highest since it began tracking the metric 27 years ago. “This is historic supply,” said Todd Oglesby, managing director of Alliance Residential Co.’s Southeast division. “It’s at the highest levels since the 1980s.” Oglesby made his comments as part of a panel of developers at France Media’s InterFace Multifamily Southeast, an annual conference held on Thursday, Nov. 30 at the Westin Buckhead hotel in Atlanta. Chad Riddle, senior project manager at Bohler, moderated the panel entitled “Given the Interest Rate & Debt Market Environment, How Are Developers Making New Projects Pencil?” Throughout the full-day conference, several panelists mentioned that their firms’ …

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FeaturesHeartland Feature ArchiveMultifamily & Affordable Housing Feature ArchiveNortheast Feature ArchiveSoutheast Feature ArchiveTexas & Oklahoma Feature ArchiveWestern Feature Archive

Forecast Survey: What’s Your Take on Commercial Real Estate in 2024?

by John Nelson

The editors of REBusinessOnline.com are conducting a brief online survey to gauge market conditions in 2024, and we welcome your participation. The survey should only take a few minutes to complete. Questions range from property sectors that you are most bullish on heading into 2024 to trends in deal volume to your outlook for interest rates. The results of our 13th annual survey will be compiled and published in the January issues of our regional magazines. Conducting these surveys is part of our mission at France Media to provide readers with indispensable information, and we couldn’t do it without your help. To participate in our broker/agent survey, click here. To participate in our developer/owner/manager survey, click here. To participate in our lender/financial intermediary survey, click here. (Note: Please remember to click on “done” to properly submit the survey.)

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FeaturesIndustrialNorth CarolinaSoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Industrial Owners Seeking Fair Tax Treatment Should Differentiate Personal Property From Real Estate Values

by John Nelson

North Carolina taxes both real estate and personal property, but differing valuation schedules and processes for the two types can lead to confusion and inflated tax bills for industrial property owners. Understanding how assessors value industrial properties can help those taxpayers detect issues and contest unfair assessments. Dual processes North Carolina requires assessors to revalue real property at least every eight years. The value as of Jan. 1 of the valuation year then remains constant until the next valuation, unless specified changes in the property occur to trigger a change in the assessment. Many counties revalue every four years, and a few, even more frequently. Assessors use a market analysis to determine real property’s taxable or fair market value. This involves applying one or more of the three valuation approaches: cost, comparable sales, or income. The state requires annual valuation of personal property based on installed cost, which is subject to the applicable trending and depreciation schedules. For the most part, taxing authorities rely on the taxpayer’s annual business personal property listing to determine what items of personal property are present, the installed cost, and the trending and depreciation schedule applied. The counties follow schedules for auditing the property tax …

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FeaturesIndustrialSouth CarolinaSoutheastSoutheast Feature Archive

Fair Property Taxes Are Essential to Manufacturers

by John Nelson

COVID-19 laid bare many problems inherent in offshore supply chains and spurred widespread interest in reshoring manufacturing to the United States. As companies and communities explore site selection and expansion opportunities, they should remember that manufacturing profitability often hinges on tax strategy. Staging a comeback For the first time in decades, industry and the public sector are working to make American manufacturing competitive in a rapidly changing global marketplace. The recent enactments of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act have directed billions of dollars into enhancing domestic manufacturing capacity. The semiconductor industry presents a high-profile case study. The United States holds 12 percent of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity, eroded from 37 percent in 1990. The CHIPS Act’s $52 billion in federal funding is intended to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing, design and research and reinforce the nation’s chip supply chains, fortifying the economy and national security along the way. Simultaneously, the United States is becoming a leading producer of electric vehicles and vehicle battery plants. Since 2021, announced U.S. investments in semiconductors and electronics exceed $166 billion, and announced U.S. investments in electric vehicles and battery manufacturing exceed $150 billion. Deciding where …

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