I was thinking we should have a place to bs about real estate in general - things we're working on, successes we've had lately, etc.
For me - today is the last day of my pre-grad school REPE summer internship and my going away present was a return offer for next year if I want it. Not sure where I'll be mentally next year, but it's just a great feeling knowing that you were well received. I wanted to thank everyone here for all the info and discussion over the past couple years too. I've went from office broker to asset manager to acquisitions intern and WSO has been there every step of the way.
Nice work securing the offer CRE. We're going to miss you after putting out all this content all summer.
I'll throw some topics out there. We have been struggling to find good (read: not overpriced) deals for the last couple months. Everything is getting priced through the roof.
We've shifted over to smaller, off-market properties in secondary markets. Interesting stuff but we won't hit our acquisition targets at this pace.
Bullish on: flex/incubator industrial, student housing, senior housing* (provided it's not already overdeveloped in the market), resorts/lodging*, self storage*, mixed-use (retail users love the captive audience) near public transit
*We don't cover these officially but would love to hear from someone who does.
Bearish: commodity office (Seattle has like 8% of its inventory under construction - good luck!), big box industrial (lots of development), multifamily that's not near public transit
Now if you'll excuse me it's 5:30, the sun is shining, and girls are ordering margaritas somewhere.
I did some capital raises in IB for student housing assets. I think the demand is robust for a number of reasons and the asset is stronger than traditional MF. Observe: 1-the leases are ALWAYS gauranteed by the parents 2-vacancy and cylicality is limited since lease up occurs pretty much towards end of summer and rates are locked in with little turnover until the end of the academic year; 3-location is based on proximity to campus instead of in a CBD and thus land acquisition costs may be cheaper, can also be a ground lease from the school 4-the $/sq ft margins are higher becuase you can stick more students into 1 unit who demand less free space than some elite 30something year old making $200K
Student lending doesn't really impact student housing because you are not paying down the debt while you're in school; this coupled with the gaurantees by the parents (most student debt is also gauranteed by parents fyi) I woud suspect makes student housing assets highly desirable as reflected in the cap rates