BPG Properties' Pasquarella

PHILADELPHIA-Last month Incisive Media’s RealShare Philadelphia here brought together real estate professionals from around the area to speak in front of about 450 attendees. One of the panelists was Art Pasquarella, executive vice president and chief operating officer of locally based BPG Properties, a firm with 20 million square feet of commercial real estate and 25,000 apartment units across the country. During the conference, Pasquarella spoke with GlobeSt.com about the state of the industry during the recession and how firms are adapting.

GlobeSt.com: What makes you optimistic about multifamily properties right now?

Pasquarella: Everything is cyclical of course, but what we’ve experienced is that the multifamily market is a recipient of the downturn in the for-sale housing market. So what had happened was back between 2003 and 2006, the boom period for for-sale housing, we actually were having very difficult operating conditions for the multifamily side, if only for the reason that while the economy was strong, people were leaving apartment communities in droves because of plenty of available housing, incredibly low interest rates and the teaser rates where you would get an adjustable-rate mortgage. We do exit surveys all the time, and by far, the majority were leaving to buy a home. When the market cooled, we saw an about-face on the operating conditions of the multifamily side. We were no longer struggling to keep tenants in the community–they were coming in droves. Occupancy rates jumped, concessions to get tenants to come into the community fell precipitously. It became a very strong revenue-growth period on the multifamily side.