Both Big and Small, REITs Among Top Buyers of Commercial Property in 2010
Multifamily Executive reports: Flush with cash and responsible to investors for quarterly dividends, real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been among the most active buyers of commercial real estate in 2010. In a recent article on the Multifamily Executive, Les Shaver illustrates this capital group’s aggressive buying agenda with an outline of recent REIT trades in the apartment sector. The recovering apartment sector has become a relative success story for commercial property as a whole; as Shaver points out, the apartment sector “has increased for the fifth consecutive month” as of August, according to the most recent Month in Review in Real Capital Analytics’ US Capital Trends, a weekly interactive online publication.
The Multifamily Executive cites large, national public REITs, such as Equity Residential and UDR, Inc., among the most recent buyers of significant apartment assets. However, “even the mid-sized and smaller REITs have been buyers. In fact, in some cases, they have been more aggressive than their larger brethren.” Regional and local players, including Mid-America Apartment Communities of Memphis and BRE Properties of San Francisco, have been behind some impressive apartment transactions over the past quarter as well.
The apartment sector is also home to a large number of distressed assets, with many being failed or in-process condo-conversion projects, and public REITs are taking advantage of these unique buying opportunities. Whether distressed or non-distressed, however, Multifamily Executive quotes RCA managing director Dan Fasulo as expecting, “transaction volumes to increase significantly through the year and into 2011…a lot of investors are ready to go again.” This could present REITs with competition that has been mostly absent over the recent past.
View the full article on Multifamily Executive: Both Big and Small, REITs Among Top Buyers of Commercial Property in 2010
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Posted by: Nina Turner