By Jeff Enck, senior vice president, SRS Real Estate Partners Throughout the world of retail investment sales, reality is setting in. Buyers and sellers of unanchored retail shops are adjusting to lingering market uncertainty, which, at least for now, seems to be here to stay. Over the past 12 to 18 months, the Federal Reserve has doused the white-hot, inflation-powered economy with buckets of interest rate hikes, increasing the effective federal funds rate from .08 percent at the beginning of 2022 to 5.08 percent today. Based on the central bank’s latest public signals, it doesn’t appear that interest rates are coming back down anytime soon. But it’s important to note that, historically speaking, they are not significantly high. Debt Challenges Continue Insurance companies, credit unions and relationship-driven lenders are financing the majority of retail deals in the market today. Typical bank loans, however, have slowed significantly as some institutions are either inactive or face rates are too high to meet debt service coverage ratios. Some private investors are buying with all cash or closing with cash plus lines of credit. A recent example of a “new normal” deal involves a life insurance company loan on a purchase transaction of a $15 …
