Real Estate Forum's Capital Markets Survey 2011: Money's Back, But It's Picky

The capital markets are certainly in a much different state than they were just a few months ago, and conditions continue to change. The editors of Real Estate Forum asked readers to participate in a survey to get a ground-level sense of the current state of the debt and equity financing arenas. More than 300 executives from across the commercial real estate spectrum participated in the study, which was anonymous. Many of the responses were expected, but some were actually surprising. 

Nearly half (47%) of those polled believe property prices have increased somewhat over the past 12 months. Another 20% said prices have remained the same and 18.3% believe they’ve decreased somewhat. Of course, it all depends on the property; most respondents said trophy assets in core markets are seeing upticks, whereas values for B and C assets in secondary cities have remained the same or decreased slightly. 

Still, a majority of participants (37.3%) stated that today’s property pricing is fair. Another 33.9% characterized values as inflated, while 28.8% reported depressed pricing. “Artificially low rates and ‘dumb’ money are driving values up to levels that are not sustainable,” said one executive, while another noted, “Too many commercial realtors are still using 2006 pricing combined with unrealistic cap rates—made up, in other words—to market properties.”