Current CRE Phase

Countering this point: I disagree that we’re in for a “quick” rebound within a year or two. Pretty much couldn’t lose money over the past 10-12 years leading to beginning of 2023 due to historically insanely low interest rates, aka free money. 
 

Now, we’re feeling the reversion. There’s an entire asset class that is significantly overbuilt, and is going to continue to have negative ripple effects on the industry for years to come. Inflation is staying stubbornly high, and I can’t really see how it’s going to come down anytime soon. Everyone thinks interest rates are going to come down, but no one has any justification other than “because they have to”. Logically, they’ll stay elevated to decrease the overly optimistic asset prices that aren’t supported by earnings- and if our government has any balls they’ll finally attack our fiscal deficit. 

Main point: we just had an exceptionally amazing run to the top standing on the shoulders of bear bottom interest rates over 10+ years, and now we’re just going to have a quick 1-2 year decline and then it’s back up? Who’s supporting that growth? It’s sure as shit not going to be consumers for much longer with increasing CC + Auto defaults. Where is the increased NOI going to come from? People won’t be able to afford rent increases, it’ll either come in the form of vacancy, delinquency, or YoY rent leased rates, but top line revenue is going to decrease. In tandem, inflation is going to increase expenses- expect insurance to continue going up, as well as the cost of services. We’re in for a down cycle for a while until pricing truly comes down and we can support the 3% annual NOI growth people are projecting.

The days of penciling 3-5% rent growth “just because you can” are over, and deals will be harder to make sense while buyers and sellers are still at a disconnect. Seller cap rates are still unrealistically low- historic spreads above the US10Y is something like 200-300 BP depending on observed CRE risk. Well, I think right now qualifies as 300 BP timing given the uncertainty. That means broadly CRE Cap rates needs to be somewhere like 100 BP higher than people want them to be right now. Think of it from a Gordon growth perspective - if you cannot logically support annual NOI growth, and you’re supposed to be getting a spread of 200-300 above Risk free rates (cap rate = RF+(risk premium - NOI growth) that says you could even need to be somewhere in the 7% range. This is all for multifamily btw. Apologies for rant style details, but hope to have some friendly discussion on this.