Are Institutions Pulling Out of the Apartment Market?

Gary Goodman is the SVP of acquisitions at Passco Cos.

LOS ANGELES—Apartment demand is still hitting record highs, but a nominal shift in market fundamentals is changing the buyer pool. According to Gary Goodman, SVP of acquisitions at Passco Cos., says that institutional investors are leaving the market due to strategies that favor conservatism, and the shift is creating great opportunities for private buyers to pick up some really great assets that they might not have had access to.

“Institutional investors are backing off of the market, particularly for core properties and particularly in gateway cities as well as secondary and tertiary markets,” Goodman tells GlobeSt.com. “There is a concern that has infiltrated the whole industry about where we are in the cycle. We are seven years into the recovery and maybe eight years in terms of substantial rent growth and appreciation. Some articles that are being written and some markets that are seeing rent abetment is kind of scaring people off. It is always safer for institutional capital to err on the conservative side, so it is better to back away.”