Lenders are from Mars.
Borrowers are from Venus.
Rewind 10 years. If you wanted to make $100M+ your best bet would have been to buy, fix, and flip class B apartments.
-- Occupancy was up substantially
-- Rents were up substantially
-- Debt was increasingly available
-- Equity was increasingly available
-- Cap rates were down substantially
-- Values were up substantially
Relatively easy 15%+ annual returns, with big operators approaching 30%. 2x multiples year in and year out. ...for the better part of a decade.
Those tailwinds have now turned to headwinds...
-- Occupancy is down
-- Rents are flat or down, depending on the market
-- Debt is more restrictive
-- Equity is more restrictive
-- Cap rates are up
And the most meaningful of these changes--as illustrated in this visual--relates to debt. Values always fall when lenders increase their thresholds (higher debt yields, high debt service coverage ratios, and/or lower LTVs.)
Arguably, no subsector within commercial real estate benefited as much from cheap debt as B apartment sponsors. ...and perhaps no subsector will feel the pain more than those same sponsors.
Many of these sponsors have deservedly captured headlines for 12+ months. Others have been swept up in those headlines but will survive and potentially thrive.
Either way, we think it's important to highlight what has driven the significant downshift in this market: Debt availability.
#creanalyst #realestatecapitalmarkets #bapartments