Should Multifamily Developers Focus on Suburban Locations?

Rubber Meets the Road panel at RealShare Apartments.

LOS ANGELES—Apartments transactions rose to an all-time record of $150 billion in 2015 and with $72 billion in sales closed in the first half of the year alone, 2016 is on track to not disappoint. Behind these transactions are the professionals who put each deal together, whether they’re connecting buyers with sellers or lining up the financing to make the sale happen. On a recent panel at RealShare Apartments last week, moderated by Kitty Wallace, EVP of Colliers International, expert sources discussed what it takes to sift through the massive number of players in the market to find the right components and parties for each transaction.

Panelist Gary Goodman, SVP of acquisitions at Passco, provided a national overlook, saying that he is fortunate to be able to look at the country as a whole as opposed to being a regional buyer. “The risk adjusted returns to us are really the best in the Southeast,” he said, adding that his firm is very active in Northern Atlanta, the Florida markets, Nashville, and Austin to name a few. “What I like is that they are suburban locations. We aren’t focused at all on the core inner city properties.”

For the most, Goodman said that “we aren’t overly built” at this time, but he did say that there are some core markets, especially in the gateway cities that are. “We stay away from those places. We have picked up some assets that are phenomenal that are getting 5% to 6% rent growth. It seems to me that it is a fool’s game to be buying in San Francisco at a 3.5 cap when rents are going down. For us, it is all about cash flow.”