Expense growth exceeding market rent growth - how are you handling this in DCF's?

I am building a model for an office property in NJ. I found a survey from Newmark indicating that expense growth is indicated to outpace market rent growth for NJ office, at least in the near term.

Link to survey for those curious: https://www.nmrk.com/insights/market-report/newma…

I am wondering how you would handle this if building a cash flow with a 10+ year analysis period. If the market rent growth is outpaced by the expense growth, then over time the expenses will become a larger and larger percentage of the EGI... Is that how people are underwriting office in some markets?

Just hoping to get some thoughts. Thanks!

7 Comments
 

Well, this is for an appraisal, so for the purposes of the assignment I need to be impartial and underwrite how "the market" would underwrite it.

 
Most Helpful

Depends on your stance on the market and investment. If your viewpoint is I believe what I read in the report, than maybe you model expenses growing faster than rents for 10 years. If you don’t believe it - that’s fine- that’s why it is called investing. Explain your viewpoint, make sure it’s logical, underwrite it, and we will see if you are right in 5 -10 years. Maybe your view is rent growth will catch up in 5 years because vacancy will normalize. So you underwrite 2% rent growth years 1-5 and 3% expense growth. But in years 6-10 you underwrite 3% growth for both rents or expenses. 

 

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