From a small northwestern observatory…

Anyone involved in real estate knows that commercial prices and values have been on a constant uptick since the trough following the recession.  The very length and breadth of the recovery has caused nervousness among investors, appraisers, and lenders.  Today, I’m looking at two somewhat disparate views on the subject.

First, Calvin Schnure, writing for NAREIT, looks at four measures of valuation:

• Cap rates and cap rate spreads to Treasury yields
• Price gains, either from increasing NOI or decreasing cap rates
• Economic fundamentals, such as occupancy and demand growth
• Leverage and debt growth

At present, none of these is giving off warning signals, according to Schnure.  Cap rates continue to be low compared to other cycles, but so are yields across the board.  There continues to be room for cap rate compression, in Schnure’s assessment.  As for price changes, every sector is showing growing or at least stable NOI, with the proportion of price changes coming from NOI now equal or exceeding price increases coming from cap rate declines.  Across the board, REIT occupancy rates are high and on the rise, with industrial and (surprisingly) retail at or near 95%.  All equity REITs are in the low 90% range, compared to the high 80’s at the trough of the recession.  Finally, debt levels are rising, but at a lower rate than valuations.  Ergo, this is not, in his opinion, a debt-fueled cycle.  Right now, debt/book ratios are significantly lower than in the previous FOMC tightening cycle (2004-2006).  For a full copy of Schnure’s article, click here.

Second, I was at the American Real Estate Society’s annual meeting in Ft. Myers, FL, last week, and had the great pleasure to sit in on a presentation by my good friend Dr. Glenn Mueller of Denver University, the author of the widely acclaimed Market Cycle Monitor.  He tracks property types and geographic markets by occupancy, absorption, and new supply statistics, and for years has proffered a very accurate measure of commercial real estate, both nationally and locally, across four potential phases:

• Recovery (rising, although unprofitable rents and occupancy)
• Expansion (rising and profitable rents and occupancy, stimulating new construction)
• Hypersupply (oversupply of new construction and declining rents and occupancy)
• Recession (unprofitable and declining rents and occupancy)

Most markets cycle through these phases in a fairly predictable fashion.   Right now, most markets (property types and geography markets) appear to be in the expansion mode, with some (notably, apartments) potentially crossing the line into hypersupply.

In short, commercial real estate markets look healthy, absent the sort of exogenous shocks that sent us into the most recent recession.  That said, many of those same metrics read positive prior to the mortgage market melt-down.  Of course, commercial real estate actually faired pretty well during the recession, compared to many other asset classes, supporting the notion that in times of economic trouble, real estate equities can be great storers of value.