Any other Acq guys not doing much?
We’ve been actively underwriting and tracking the market but by and large the days are very slow and boring. We focus on office and R&D along the West Coast. Would love to jump ship but there aren’t many VP level acq roles at the moment. Anyone else experiencing the same?
Yes, getting my video game and lifting time in
Dont forget those forearm exercises.
Actively underwriting and tracking, but haven't done anything meaningful in a long time.
Nobody I know is even close to buying anything other than one group with a 1031 exchange coming up.
There's no where to jump to lol, not like other shops are busy. Very little has been done over the last year and will continue to be the case.
It’s true
How long will your shop (and others) continue along like this? Underwriting deals to monitor the market is not a long term strategy.
A couple rate cuts wouldn’t hurt. Stay strong
My friend we are going up from here.
I work at a fund that invests in debt and distressed equity deals. We work late and on weekends because deal flow has picked up. Honestly wish I could just chill at work. I guess grass is always greener.
What fund? Since you're anon.
Nah, not going to share that level of info. You know which type of funds fit this description as there aren’t that many
Have you been reading the market research or doing any analysis on your "market tracking"? Not much of anything is trading today, and the stuff that is is mostly just institutions shuffling assets around to each other at inflated cap rates to rebalance portfolios. In other words, very few companies are particularly busy today outside those pension funds/LifeCos, maybe with the exception of teams that are betting on office.
Very bad time to be jumping ship. Ride it out.
Interested why Pension funds/lifeco's are different? and what they are active in? Thanks
Grass isn't always greener, spoke to someone at a LifeCo on the debt side and they're just doing management/admin work and not really on a team.
If you're driven, build something, and want to work on interesting deals it seems LifeCos are not the way to go and are more steady hours/paycheck but many of the people seem to put in 40-50 hours a week and don't care much about progression.
Because pension funds/lifecos are governed by strict regulations and red tape and an overall portfolio mandate. If the higher ups decide they need to increase/decrease their weight in real estate and re-balance the underlying real estate portfolio between asset classes, then that's what they have to do and they have to do it on a certain timeline. They aren't managing their real estate portfolios on a standalone basis.
This ultimately means that if the higher ups say "hey you need to get out of enclosed malls, power centres and suburban office by end of 2024 and reweight into gateway market purpose-built rentals", that is what they have to do regardless of where cap rates are and how dilutive it may be to returns.
We've been pretty busy for the past year and I'm constantly losing out on deals to other institutional shops so it's clear that there still are many groups that are staying busy. Contrary to what others have mentioned, I've noticed that the LifeCo / Pension fund groups have been pretty quiet but the more "nimble" side of the institutional scale have seemed to stay aggressive, particularly since the beginning of 2024. This is in regard to the asset classes that have remained in demand (retail, industrial, multi) as it goes without saying that office is getting hammered and not many groups buying. I'm also in a Tier 2 growth market so I'm sure that has something to do with it as well whereas I've heard NY / coastal teams have been pretty dead. Private capital and family offices have seemingly stayed very busy even through 2023 as well.
I’m in a coastal market and while we’re starting to see transaction activity, there have been very few deals that are good deals or make sense. Hopefully things pick up in the Fall
Same its quiet/just tracking and underwriting....
Closed a couple multifamily deals and expect to get a few more. Even with a complete equity wipeout, basis is still a bit elevated on a lot of what's available in Texas.
How are you buying anything? Are you at a newer shop that needs fees to survive? Seems like you're just lighting investors money on fire buying now.
Honestly the best time to be surveying the market and deals in a while. It’s taken a while for the market to catch up to reality since each person is so specific in their business plans and markets, but where I am it’s a pretty solid time to be looking again. Everyone’s looking away, they’ve been burned or can’t take on new risk, so being nimble on my own right now has its major advantages, though the market likes to shift daily… once things settle down, which they clearly seem to be, money will be flowing around again. It’s a flight to quality in terms of real estate and operators, but hopefully there are open paths for entrepreneurials like myself to bring good deals to good operators, and basically let them help steer the ship in the right directions once signed up. Interesting times but I see the light finally
Agreed on this- I went off on my own and have been enjoying being semi active in my west coast market, vs friends with w2's sitting around and not doing much.
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