Editor's Page

BERKADIA CONDUCTS A POLL EVERY YEAR of its ecosystem of its investment brokers and mortgage bankers, asking them what are the issues of concern for the day. At the same time it asks its prospective clients the same thing, although these findings it doesn’t publish. This year, Berkadia was astonished at how far apart these two sets of concerns were, according to Ernie Katai, executive vice president and head of Production at Berkadia. Access to debt, which was among the top concerns for brokers, was the last thing clients were concerned about. Their big worry was property-level cash flow, which makes sense, Katai told us. “When properties are trading at such low cap rates owners need to be right about their assumptions.”

You can read more about this survey and its findings in our Upfront Section. The point for our purposes is to highlight the market’s perception of debt, particularly in the multifamily space. It is abundant and cheap, so much to the point that it is not even worth a sleepless night.