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.
When you read our cover feature on this topic, you will find this to be largely true, albeit with certain nuances. For instance, some industry observers are not quite sure that debt will remain as abundant as it is now. And what to make of the supply of equity, which has been steadily becoming more conservative?
Even in an era of relatively easy money, it still requires skill to source funds for commercial real estate projects. Hence this year’s tribute to the rainmakers in this space. As with our other influencer series, we have not taken a strict numbers approach to determine who placed the most money. Rather, we examined less traditional attributes the applicants offer that highlights just as well their accumun in finance.
Likewise for our influencers in technology, which are also part of the issue. Technology in the commercial real estate space, after years of experimentation by users, is finally meeting that ultimate definition of mainstream use: it is actually delivering on the ROI promised by vendors. Read about this trend, and check out the influencers in this space in this issue.
Finally, this issue also highlights a symposium held by Transwestern and GlobeSt. Real Estate Forum late last year, in which executives from top level CRE investment firms gathered to discuss what was happening in the market. Their subject of choice? The growing number of markets that were perceived to be hostile to CRE. Practical as ever, these investors then turned the conversation to how to handle this trend.
Erika Morphy Managing Editor