Why Investors Shouldn't Overlook San Antonio
As the fourth-best market in the state, San Antonio has traditionally been overlooked by institutional investors looking at the bigger Texas markets. (Has the city tried Match.com?) But one NYC-based player just refi’ed a retail center and is selling a mixed-use office/retail project here. So when will the rest of the investment world take notice?
Angelic Real Estate prez Gabriel Silverstein (here with a striper off of Block Island) says if San Antonio were in any other state, it would be on the investment radar for new projects. It’s among the top 10 markets for job growth, but it’s overshadowed by the combination of Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Gabriel tells us. Outside of USAA, there’s few, if any, institutional investors in the market, he says (being locally headquartered, it’s hard not to notice the growth when it’s outside your window). However, Gabriel thinks that will change over the next two to three years.
San Antonio may not have the dynamic technology and energy industry presences that Dallas and Houston have, but at least for now, it has higher cap rates, and those higher going-in yields will have to attract institutional eyes at some point—especially as vacancy rates tighten and rents move upward, Gabriel tells us. It’s not only a large city, it’s one of the 10 fastest growing cities (by population) in the US. (San Antonio is all about the Top 10s. Maybe David Letterman should get on board.) Even if the economic base isn’t as dynamic, more people means more housing, more consumer needs, and more service industry jobs to provide all those things that we all need—each equaling more real estate. Office vacancies overall are still high in San Antonio, but retail and industrial vacancy rates are falling, and rents are starting to rise.
Gabriel says the office/medical mixed-use project for sale is in the $10M range, so while it won't grab the attention from the larger institutional investor pool, it should generate a lot of local interest. Angelic also just refinanced the 76k SF Los Indios Shopping Center at 905 Pleasanton Rd for a Brooklyn-based borrower, who bought the center in 2007. The new five-year term loan has a 25-year amortization and limited recourse to the borrower. Gabriel led the financing, along with Louis D’Lando of Angelic’s Boca Raton office. Gabriel uses one of his hobbies on the job: He's a pilot for the company plane. That's him at the Leadville, Colo., airport with the firm's Mooney airplane behind him. Leadville has the highest altitude airport in North America—recently remeasured at 9,934 feet above mean sea level (even though the sign says 9,927).
