http://brigodfrey.cbvegas.com/blog/archive_201310/sort_entrydatetime-desc/ Some analysts have noted weak M & A activity in REITs throughout the past year. One common reason is the lack of willing sellers. Pretty natural result in this interest rate environment.Scott Craig expands on some of these reasons here:http://www.reit.com/Videos/Analyst-says-REIT-MA-Activity-Lags-Due-to-Lack-of-Sellers.aspxRecently Cole Real Estate and American Realty Capital Partners merged. Housewire has the details:http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27597-cole-real-estate-to-merge-into-american-realty-capital-affiliateFinally, the MAA and Colonial multifamily combination was a highlight so far this year.http://www.marketwatch.com/story/maa-and-colonial-properties-trust-complete-83-billion-merger-2013-10-01They do have assets in Las Vegas, so this is a good one to follow. http://brigodfrey.cbvegas.com/blog/878/reit-m-&-a/ Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:15:07 -0800 Las Vegas – Senior leadership at Coldwell Banker Premier Realty announces the sale of Inspirado Apartments to private investors, Mystic Sands LLC.  Inspirado, a 252 unit apartment home community completed in 2011, which sold for $28,700,000, represents one of the larger transactions that took place in the Las Vegas Valley in 2013. “Inspirado was a great opportunity for an investor to acquire a low vacancy, newer project in a growing submarket, near several major employment centers”, said Brian Krueger, Senior Vice President with Coldwell Banker Premier’s Strategic Services Division, whose team represented the seller and the buyer.  Newer, Class A properties in Las Vegas are typically outperforming other assets in the sector. Investors have also had access to very reasonably priced capital for use in this sector.  Inspirado is located in the Northwest submarket of the Las Vegas Valley. High quality real estate assets continue to be favored by institutions and professional investors and Class A multifamily remains a sought after property class.  Many demographic trends are favorable to the rental market as echo boomers often enter the housing market as renters, many into apartments. Multifamily is in a position to benefit from declining homeownership rates that have been artificially supported during the housing bubble and can benefit quickly from an improving economy due to the short-term nature of most leases. In the Las Vegas market, several data points, including driver’s license surrenders and surveys of household moves, suggest positive migration to the region, supporting multifamily occupancies. Contrary to several major metropolitan areas where rents have already returned to peak prices and vacancies are already below long-term averages, there is likely room for investors to capitalize on possible improvements in the economic picture of the Las Vegas region. In addition, new deliveries of multifamily units have been restrained for an extended period and many multifamily developers are competing for land with single family homebuilders. http://brigodfrey.cbvegas.com/blog/875/class-a-apartments/ Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:07:04 -0800 Just finished reading a transcript of a Silver Bay discussion at the JPM Securities Financial Services and Real Estate Conference.Here is one interesting quote  "But again, the institutional ownership that you read about in the papers is still very small, perhaps a 100,000, maybe 150,000 homes have been purchased over the past three, four years, and that's just tiny in comparison to the overall markets. So, we see a great deal of growth opportunity and consolidation going forward."  The media has largely been hammering on the institutional buyer as a principal cause of the home price run-ups we have seen in a lot of areas. This is only partially the case. Similar in the markets we follow. A second quote is also interesting. "The cost of housing is all interrelated. If ultimately the housing costs in those areas goes up 50%, mortgage rates go up, the cost of attending to the home goes up, all of that will contribute in a world in which supply/demand tightens into higher rents." That is why we like this model better than a lot forms of real estate ownership. If the owner-user market gets punished by rates, that still leaves renters in the mix. http://brigodfrey.cbvegas.com/blog/868/notes-on-sfr-reits/ Sun, 06 Oct 2013 01:30:13 -0800