Straight From BMAC West
More than 300 of you joined us in LA for BMAC, Bisnow's West Coast multifamily extravaganza, and we had to share the national insight on investment, amenities, and how to keep your tenants happy. CBRE vice chairman Brian Eisendrath sees investors with higher yield requirements going to markets like Vegas, Phoenix, and the Inland Empire, where there's still an opportunity to buy at a discount to replacement cost. He's also seeing lots of folks who did traditional JV equity deals now wanting to shift to a preferred position, especially on the development side where more supply is hitting the market. There's a bit of concern that when the product being built now sells in a few years, if demand will be there and rents will hold up as more supply comes on-line.
California Landmark prez Ken Kahan says that in some of his buildings, 50% of tenants never leave their units. They wake up, get two or three buddies that join them on their laptops, and do some sort of work on the 'Net. (This gives us the idea to put a slot in the front door for the pizza guy.) Ken wants to coin the phenomenon as a creative apartment building because it's similar to what the creative office guys are doing (except their tenants still have to leave at night). Ken says the firm's building product that allows them to stay in their units—edgy, creative office-looking, but they have bedrooms.
