Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know I'm a finance nerd, and you also know
that I'm fascinated with the real estate market, commercial, land, residential,
And I saw a piece over at the Denver Post
entitled Apartment landlords facing the fallout from too much supply,
and actually over recent years we have talked about this
on the show. Just as you know myself growing up
(00:21):
as somebody who loves markets, generally speaking, you really you
tend to find the same behavior in one market after another,
and that is you will have a shortage. It causes
prices to go up, and in an effort to capture
the potential outsized gains available, the outsized profits available from
(00:44):
those high prices, a lot of people jump in to
try to produce whatever that thing is, and it ends
up overshooting and you end up with too much supply,
and you go from a situation where the market is
tight and prices are hot to where the market is
oversupplied and prices are low. And that kind of seems
(01:05):
to be happening in the in apartments in Denver. What
this particular article gets into that I'm really fascinated by
is the financing behind all that. Because you got to
have money to build an apartment building. And most people
who build an apartment building don't have that money sitting
in there checking account. They got to go to either
(01:26):
directly or indirectly, to investors who are willing to fund
these projects. So joining us talk about a lot of
this stuff is Amy Love. Amy is a principal at Essex,
which is a commercial real estate finance firm based in Denver.
Their website says and I trust them that they're right
that they are the largest privately held mortgage banking company
(01:48):
in Colorado, and the website is Essex RCA dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Amy.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Welcome to Kowa. Thanks for joining me on short notice.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Hi Ross, I'm happy to be with you to So
can you can.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You describe to us?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I want to start really macro before we get to
what's going on in Denver. What is a typical finance
process for somebody who wants to build an apartment building?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Sure, well, and I'll just start to I think you
completely nailed it with the supply demand issue and what's
going on in Denver right now, and we'll get into
that later. But the typical finance process someone wanting to
build apartments, you know, they obviously have to select their site,
go through permitting process and everything with the city, which
(02:37):
is an issue to you know, over the past couple
of years in Denver. Getting through that process is quite
difficult for a lot of developers. But then to get
the financing, you know, you'll find your equity source that
can be through you know, raising money from friends and
family to invest in your project, or finding a more
(03:00):
institutional capital partner to supply you with the equity and
then find.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So let me just jump in for a second, just
so folks understand the terminology when you're using the term
equity here in terms of a comparison that most people
would understand. I think what that would be like is,
what's the source of your down payment? Because you can't
borrow one hundred percent of the money from the bank
or whoever you're going to get the debt part from.
(03:29):
You need equity part that's hard cash, so that you
can borrow then eighty percent or sixty percent or whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
That's right, Ross, Yeah, that's a great comparison. And you
know the down payment portion or the equity portion, people
view that as an investment into the project. So that's
another way of investing. You know, you can invest in
the stock market, you can invest in bonds. Commercial real
estate investing is another really popular way to invest your money.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, So they is the equity and then they want
debt for the rest, which is usually the majority, I assume.
So they come to someone like you and then and
what do you do?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So they come to someone like me. My role in
this is to find the best debt out there for
their projects. So we work with our clients on understanding
their objectives, what's really important for them and their project,
and then we align that with the best lender out there.
(04:31):
So that could be a bank, that could be a
life insurance company, a debt fund, and there's you know
a lot of other lenders out there as well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
So typically when you get these first loans, would this
be would this be the same as a construction loan
or is it? Or is it a different thing? And
what happens if you get to what's supposed to be
the end of a construction loan and the building isn't
finished yet, which does seem like there's some of it
going on in Denver.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, there's some of.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That going on. So so yeah, you get your construction loan,
you use those funds to you know, build your project,
and then there's normally kind of a tail on that loan,
you know, term wise, so maybe it takes two years
to build the project and then you have another year
(05:25):
to lease it up and stabilize the property. What's been
going on here is that most of these projects got built,
and they're just taking a lot longer to lease up
and stabilize. Right. And even if they do get you know,
ninety five percent leased, which we consider stabilized, the rents
and expenses and kind of a lot of different hail
(05:48):
winds operating against these developers, they're just not getting to
the numbers that they had thought they would.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Okay, so let's really get into the u.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Like the loan is overleveraged in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Okay, that makes sense, So all right, so let's get
into the nuts and bolts of denver. So on the
on the residential side, typically people think about twenty percent
down payment at least to not have to pay PMI,
not have to pay mortgage insurance.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Is that number similar on the commercial side.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No, it's typically lower. So kind of in the heyday
the last couple of years, well in twenty one twenty three,
that was really plentiful. Banks were kind of overloaded with
this excess liquidity from COVID stimulus, so that was really
(06:39):
easy to come by and it was very cheap. So
kind of in that period was sort of the best
financing period that we've seen in a long time, and
kind of the maximum debt on a you know, an
apartment project might have been I would say about seventy
percent loan to value, so you need to come up
with thirty percent down payment for equity.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Okay, So you everybody goes into this in some particular
market condition where the average rent for the for the
average apartment of the type that's going to be in
that building is fifteen hundred dollars a month, and you
do your pro ratus based on fifteen hundred dollars a month,
and you put a little wiggle room like maybe it'll
(07:22):
drop two percent, and you know, so then you look
at fourteen hundred and seventy dollars a month and say,
all right, everybody's going to get paid back and this
loan will be fine. And then by the time you
get to to actually not you, but the builder or
the developer gets to filling up the building. Instead of
(07:42):
fifteen hundred dollars a month, they're getting fourteen hundred dollars
a month.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And now the numbers don't look so good. And now they're.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Also if you revalue the building, if they were at
seventy percent loan to value in terms of the loan,
now the loan is a bigger percentage of what the
new value is.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So what happens then? Do they have to put up
more cash?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Oftentimes yes, So we're working on a lot of it's
called a cash in refinance. So in that situation where
the loan now today feels overleveraged because of the dynamics
that you were just talking about, they're having to refinance
the loan either with the existing bank or a new
(08:25):
lender and putting additional passion, additional equity into the property.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
At that point, does the lender really have a ton
of leverage in the you know, like, Okay, you're out
of you're out of compliance with the covenants of the loan,
so you better do what we say or else, or
in the sense, does a lender of risk too of
some sort where where the negotiating power between the both
(08:51):
sides is kind of equal what does that look like.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So the lenders do have a lot of leverage in
this situation because they're you know, for the most part,
and multifamily today. Yeah, there's there's an issue as we're describing,
but most of the lenders aren't at risk of losing
their money because of that downpayment, and so, you know,
we're not in a situation where these loans are one
(09:18):
hundred percent of the value anymore. Maybe it's eighty and
that just feels a little bit too risky. They want
to correct that. The lenders, you know, do have the
power in this, and especially as we approach like a
maturity date on the loan, these borrowers are going to
be pretty forced to do something with the loan either,
(09:41):
you know, work out a modification with the lender refinance it.
But we've been seeing most banks are really patient with
the borrowers. Banks tend to lend money to strong customers
of theirs and they don't want to you know, they
want to play ballf nice with them, and so there's
(10:02):
been a lot of patients with that, especially because they're
really not at risk of losing a lot of money
on these projects.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
That makes sense. We're talking with.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Thought this is a different story.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
But multifamily, oh for sure.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
You know it's it's not easy, but it's not dire
for the lenders.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We're talking with Amy Loves. She's a principal at Essex.
The website is Essex r e c A.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
They are a very large commercial real estate finance firm
based in Denver, but they finance projects around around the country.
What is the scale of the problem in Denver right now?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
That's a great question. I think in general, there's I've
heard a lot of landlords saying, like describing the leasing
as a nice fight. I keep hearing that coming up,
where all of these projects that are getting delivered, they're
trying to get leased up. They're they're trying to solve
these problems as far as getting their property stabilized and
(11:02):
keeping their investors and their lenders happy. So there's a
lot of competition for tenants. So they're offering a lot
of concessions, which is a free rent period which can
be anywhere from four to twelve weeks depending on the market,
so maybe four in Denver and twelve and like a
market like Colorado Springs to try to fill up these buildings.
(11:26):
They're not getting even close to their rents in general
that they anticipated they would. And then we have another
issue kind of operating against these projects is that expenses
have grown significantly since these projects were penciled out. Taxes, insurance, utilities,
(11:47):
everything has gone up very significantly. So you kind of
have that issue as well, and so.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Have interest rates. Right, It wouldn't surprise me if a
refi interest rate to be a lot higher than the
initial construction loan interest rate, if that was done like
early COVID or something.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
That's right. So, yeah, you're describing all these issues kind
of operating together. You know, it all kind of works
together like a puzzle and a lot of the pieces
just aren't aren't fitting. So yeah, the cost of capital,
the cost of debt. You know, if you originally did
your loan a couple of years ago at four and
(12:30):
a half or five percent and may it eight six
or seven depending on yeah, or eight depending on where
things stand with the property, that that's a very big
difference and can also you know, cause a scenario where
you're needing to put a lot more cash.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
In, right, and as if that is.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
A lot of a lot of headwinds against against multifamily.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, now, right, And as if that all isn't enough,
it also appears that that the demographic changed a little
bit and that there's less demand of people moving into
Denver than there was five years ago.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
All Right, one real.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Quick thing before I let you go, since you mentioned it,
I'm also super interested in office. It's just a funny thing.
You're probably aware of this. I think it's four buildings
right next to I twenty five. West side of I
twenty five, near Spear, there's an office, an older office
thing called Diamond Hilly.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I own some of that.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I have owned some of that through a syndicated real
estate deal for twenty years, and we should have sold
it a hell of a long time ago. And I
don't know if it's worth anything now. And I'm not
asking you to tell me anything about Diamond Hill. I'm
just using that to introduce the subject here, right. I mean,
Denver has a much lower percentage of people coming back
(13:48):
to work in the office than most cities in America,
in part because we have such a high tech workforce.
Tell me a little bit about the status of the
office market and the and office real estate finance in Denver.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Sure, so.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
The office is different than multifamily and that it was
a much bigger issue you know, nationwide. Obviously today it's
just pretty it's a broad basis reset essentially. So you know,
a lot of lenders had to take back office buildings
and sell them for you know, as close to the
(14:28):
loan amount as they could possibly get. A lot of
a lot of office owners and you might be able
to speak to this too. You know, have have their
building and they have to put a lot of money
into it to keep and attract new tenant and to
keep the property you know, up to good standards. And
(14:52):
that's really difficult to do when you feel like the
value is half of what you paid for it and
keep putting money in into it, right, So that's been
really difficult for existing office owners to do, and so
a lot of the time they let the property go.
So it's a really great opportunity for new investors to
(15:13):
come in and pick up these buildings at a really
low basis in you know, with the thought that eventually
the office market is going to normalize and they'll make
some money on those those deals.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Amy Love Principle at essex essex r e c A
dot com. Thanks for doing this, Amy, that's fascinating conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Love to have you back. Okay, thanks so much, Ros,
all right, thank you