Episodios

  • Why Affordable Multifamily Outshines Luxury

    Why Affordable Multifamily Outshines Luxury
    Sep 22 2025

    Greg MacKinnon is Director of Research at the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA), where he updates the world’s largest institutional investors on portfolio construction, risk, and strategy. His is a vantage point most sponsors never get to hear directly.

    In this conversation, Greg and I revisited our conversation from two weeks ago to drill deeper into the housing market. His thesis is simple but surprising: the capital flows and risk assessments at the very top of the pyramid are being reshaped by renter bifurcation and the economics of affordability.

    Here are five questions Greg answered that every serious CRE professional should consider:

    1. Why does the 10-year Treasury matter more than the Fed’s 25 bps rate cut last week?
    2. How fragile is today’s economy, and what does that mean for institutional portfolio construction?
    3. How can understanding the “barbell” of renter demand help you make better investment decisions?
    4. Why has naturally affordable multifamily historically outperformed luxury on a risk-adjusted basis?
    5. Where are institutions actually deploying capital today and why?

    Greg’s insights are drawn from the institutional world, where the stakes are measured in billions and the lens is long-term risk management.

    For sponsors and operators, listening in offers a rare chance to see how these investors are evaluating markets - and to align your own strategies accordingly.

    *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today’s volatile real estate landscape. You’ll get:
    • Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.
    • Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.
    • Insights from real estate professionals who’ve been through it all before.

    Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe
    Email: adam@gowercrowd.com
    Call: 213-761-1000
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    46 m
  • Distress Is Coming - Slowly, Then All At Once

    Distress Is Coming - Slowly, Then All At Once
    Sep 15 2025
    Reid Bennett knows multifamily. As National Council Chair of Multifamily at SVN and a 24-year broker across market-rate, workforce, and affordable housing, he’s completed hundreds of transactions and advised lenders on more than 450 broker opinions of value (BOV) in just the past 18 months. In my recent conversation with him, Reid cuts through the noise to explain what’s really happening in multifamily and why sponsors and investors need to pay attention. Here are five big questions he answers: Are the 450+ BOVs a sign that distress is about to hit multifamily, or just lenders marking time? Why are occupancies still in the mid-90s when everything else in the economy feels shaky? What’s crushing NOI faster - insurance, property taxes, or payroll? How should investors think about workforce housing as a long-term hedge against oversupply at the top end? Why do Class A buildings show concessions while B and C rents remain sticky, and how does new supply really solve affordability? This isn’t 2009, but it isn’t 2021 either. Reid explains why today’s market feels like a slow-motion reset and what signals to watch if you want to stay ahead. Tune in to hear Reid’s unvarnished take. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today’s volatile real estate landscape. You’ll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who’ve been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    46 m
  • Community Banks, Conservative Debt, Real Returns

    Community Banks, Conservative Debt, Real Returns
    Sep 14 2025

    A Banker’s Memory Is a Sponsor’s Edge

    Brad Andrus isn’t just another operator in today’s market. He’s the co-founder of Northbridge Commercial Real Estate and a former community-bank lender who cut his teeth during the 2008 crisis. That experience shaped the conservative, cash-flow-first discipline he brings to self-storage, office, and industrial deals across DFW today.

    In this episode, Brad lays out why sponsors who master operating discipline—not market timing—win when capital is cautious and debt is expensive.

    Here are 5 questions he answers that every sponsor and investor should be paying attention to right now:

    1. How do you structure debt so it survives a cycle—even if growth underwhelms?

    2. Why are community banks still the hidden edge for sponsors, even in today’s tighter credit regime?

    3. What’s the new investor mindset after 2021–2023’s write-downs and capital calls?

    4. How do you play offense in self-storage when household mobility (and move-ins) slows down?

    5. What really earns sponsors repeat checks from equity investors in 2024–2025?

    Brad’s through-line is refreshingly clear: lower leverage, cash-flow bias, relationship banking, and transparent communication.

    For anyone raising capital or allocating into deals right now, his insights are a blueprint for surviving—and compounding—across market cycles.

    *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today’s volatile real estate landscape. You’ll get:
    • Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.
    • Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.
    • Insights from real estate professionals who’ve been through it all before.

    Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe
    Email: adam@gowercrowd.com
    Call: 213-761-1000
    Más Menos
    48 m
  • Institutional Capital’s New Real Estate Playbook

    Institutional Capital’s New Real Estate Playbook
    Sep 9 2025
    Institutional CRE investing: A market run by allocation math – and uncertainty My podcast/YouTube guest today is Greg MacKinnon, Director of Research at the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA). PREA represents the institutional real estate community - think pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and other fiduciaries managing hundreds of billions on behalf of millions of beneficiaries. These are the investors who typically allocate to real estate as part of their overall investment portfolios and who set the tone for how capital flows through the entire real estate market. Greg explains how while institutional real estate remains a roughly 10% sleeve in diversified institutional portfolios, the number matters less than the mechanics behind it. When equities rally and private values fall, the real estate slice shrinks—creating a theoretical bid to “rebalance” back to target. In practice, that bid has been clogged by a fund-recycling problem: closed-end vehicles haven’t been returning capital as quickly because exits have slowed, which leaves investors waiting for distributions before recommitting. Until that dam breaks more broadly, new capital formation into private real estate remains inconsistent across strategies and managers. Office: price discovery by compulsion Institutional portfolios built in a world where office was a core holding are still working through the repricing. Unlevered office values are down on the order of ~40% from pre-COVID peaks nationally; with leverage, many positions are effectively wiped out, explaining why owners resist selling and why trades are scarce. That stasis is ending as lenders tire of “extend and pretend,” loan maturities arrive, and forced decisions accelerate. The practical question for CIOs isn’t simply “hold or sell” but how fast to harvest, return, and re-underwrite risk elsewhere. Expect more office volume but much of it distress-driven rather than conviction buying. The rate cut mirage: CRE runs on growth and the 10-year Market chatter obsesses over the next Fed move. Institutional capital takes a broader view. The cost of capital that matters for underwriting – term debt, cap-rate anchoring, discount rates – is tethered more to the 10-year Treasury than the overnight Fed funds rate. A policy cut can coexist with a higher 10-year if inflation risk re-prices, blunting any “cuts are bullish” narrative. More importantly: CRE performance tracks the real economy’s breadth and durability. Historically, rising interest rates often coincide with strong growth and healthy real estate. Falling rates tend to arrive with deceleration, which is why “cuts” are not automatically good news for NOI or values. Underwrite your forward cash flows, not the headline. Policy risk is now an underwriting line item Global capital has long treated the U.S. as the default safe harbor. That advantage compresses when macro policy feels unpredictable – tariffs one week, reversals the next, and public debate over central-bank independence. Some non-U.S. allocators have simply chosen not to live with the noise premium, shifting incremental dollars to Europe. Domestic institutions aren’t exiting the U.S., but the signal is clear: political-economy volatility now shows up as a higher hurdle rate, more conditional investment committee approvals, and a stronger preference for managers who can navigate policy in both research and structuring. Where the money is actually going Facing actuarial return targets and a cloudy macro, institutions are tilting toward “where alpha lives now”: Digital and specialized industrial: data centers; cold storage; and industrial outdoor storage (IOS) – think secured yards for heavy equipment – where supply is constrained and tenant demand is need-based. Housing adjacencies: single-family rental, manufactured housing, student housing, and seniors housing, plus targeted affordable strategies that can layer policy incentives with operating expertise. Selective core logistics and resilient multifamily: still investable but crowded; institutions need an edge in submarket selection, cost basis, or operations to meet return hurdles. Themes in common: operational complexity that deters industry tourists, local expertise that differentiates underwriting, and cash flows less correlated to the office cycle. The portfolio is changing: from “real estate” to “real assets” Many large investors are reorganizing how they bucket risk. Instead of a hard 10% “real estate” sleeve, they’re adopting either a broader real assets mandate (real estate + infrastructure + sometimes commodities) or a private markets sleeve (real estate + private credit + private equity). The goal is flexibility: tilt to where relative value is best without tripping governance wires each time. This structural shift makes it easier for a head of Real Assets to move dollars from, say, mid-risk...
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    51 m
  • Tariffs, Trust, and the Cost of Capital

    Tariffs, Trust, and the Cost of Capital
    Aug 20 2025
    The Signal Beneath the Noise Serious operators obsess over the next print, but my podcast/YouTube guest this week, Bankrate senior economic analyst, Mark Hamrick, argues the industry is missing the structural signals that actually set the cost of capital and shape demand. Start with this premise: Data credibility is a macro variable. When the quality of national jobs and inflation statistics is questioned, it is not just an esoteric Beltway quarrel; it becomes a pricing input for Treasuries and, by extension, mortgages, construction loans and exit cap rates. As Hamrick puts it, the path to good decisions for households, enterprises and policymakers ‘is lined by high quality economic data, most of which is generated by the federal government.’ Hamrick’s concern is not theoretical. He links the chain plainly: if markets doubt the numbers guiding the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, you can ‘envision a scenario where there’s less demand for our Treasury debt,’ forcing higher yields to clear supply – an economy‑wide tax that lifts borrowing costs from mortgages to autos and narrows the Fed’s room to maneuver. What Happens If Trust Erodes? The near‑term catalyst for this anxiety is unusual: the Labor Department’s head statistician was fired after unfavorable revisions, and an underqualified nominee has floated ideas as extreme as not publishing the data at all. Hamrick’s advice for investors and executives is simple: pay attention. This may not break the system tomorrow, but it introduces risk premia where none previously existed. Through a real estate lens, the translation is straightforward. Underwriting already contends with volatile inputs on rents, expenses and exit liquidity; add a credibility discount on macro data and your discount rate moves against you. Prudent sponsors should stress‑test deals for a modest upward shock in base rates – an echo of Hamrick’s ‘economy‑wide tax’ – and consider how thinner debt markets would propagate through construction starts and refis. Housing’s Lock‑In: Inventory, Not Prices, Is the Release Valve The ‘lock‑in effect’ remains the defining feature of U.S. housing. Owners sitting on sub‑3% mortgages are rationally immobile, starving resale inventory and suppressing household formation mobility, a dynamic Hamrick equates with today’s ‘no hire, no fire’ labor market: stable but sluggish churn. Builders fill some of the gap, but affordability remains constrained by national price firmness and still‑elevated mortgage rates relative to the pandemic trough. What happens if mortgage rates dip to 6.25% or even 5.5%? Don’t expect a binary ‘unlock.’ Hamrick argues for incremental improvement rather than a light switch: lower rates would expand qualification and appetite gradually, and, crucially, free inventory. He is less worried that cheaper financing simply bids up prices; the supply response from would‑be sellers is the more powerful margin effect. For operators underwriting for‑sale housing (build to rent or single-family home developments), the tactical read is to focus on markets where latent move‑up sellers dominate and where new‑home concessions currently set the comp stack. He also reminds us of the persistent, national‑level truth: prices have been unusually firm for years; in the U.S., homeownership is still the primary path to wealth – advantage owners, disadvantage non‑owners. Wealth Transfer: Inequality In, Inequality Out The widely cited $84 trillion Boomer‑to‑GenX/Millennial wealth transfer via inheritance won’t repair the middle class. It will mainly perpetuate asset inequality: assets beget assets, and the recipients most likely to inherit are already nearer the ‘have’ column. That implies continuing bifurcation in housing demand (prime school districts, high‑amenity suburbs) alongside a renter cohort optimizing for cash‑flow goals rather than equity growth. For CRE, that supports a barbell: high‑income suburban nodes + durable rental demand where incomes grow but deposits lag. Renting Without Shame and the Budget Reality Check Hamrick is refreshingly direct: there is no shame in renting as, perhaps, there used to be. For many households, renting is a rational bridge to other financial goals; build emergency savings, avoid surprise home maintenance expenses, and keep debt service from getting ‘too far out over your skis.’ For CRE owners, this fortifies the case for professionally managed rental product with transparent total‑cost‑of‑living and flexible lease options. For lenders, it argues for cautious debt-to-income ratios and expense reserves in first‑time buyer programs. Tariffs, Inflation, and the New Dashboard Hamrick closes with a monitoring list to stay on top of dominant economic trends: labor market strength (monthly employment; weekly jobless claims), the inflation complex...
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    54 m
  • Hope Certificates and Hidden Distress

    Hope Certificates and Hidden Distress
    Aug 5 2025
    Calm on the Surface, Distress Below: Joe Blackbourn on the State of Sunbelt Multifamily The Eye of the Storm? When my podcast guest this week, Joe Blackbourn, president and founder of Everest Holdings, stepped in front of a room of ULI members in late 2024, he titled his multifamily market forecast “An Underdressed Weatherman Gets Sent Into a Hurricane.” The image was evocative – and accurate. Multifamily investors, developers, and lenders had been navigating gale-force winds of rising rates, inflation shocks, and structural cost resets. And yet, as Blackbourn noted in my conversation with him, today the industry still appears eerily calm. “There’s a lot of stormy weather on the horizon, and, like a hurricane, we don’t know quite where it’s going to land or how bad it’s going to be.” The Invisible Cost of ‘Calm’ Core inflation may be retreating, but the real story, Blackbourn argues, is not about the rate of change. It’s about the baseline shift. “Even if we’re at just over 2% now, it’s still a 30% increase in a very short period of time,” he said, referring to food prices, but with implications for housing as well. Home prices in many U.S. markets, particularly across the Sunbelt, have surged by 30–50% since 2020. That repricing is likely to stick. “It’s really difficult to give that pricing back,” he added. “Short of some real economic calamity, the best we can manage is slower growth, not a decline in consumer pricing.” That same principle is locking up real estate deals. Rent growth has slowed, but operating expenses have not. The result is compressed margins, sluggish NOI, and a widespread inability to transact or refinance. Multifamily: Where Distress Hides Quietly On paper, the multifamily sector looks surprisingly stable. Cap rates for high-quality assets remain in the 5.0%–5.25% range, and transaction volume is beginning to pick up in select markets. But beneath the surface, stress is mounting. “There’s a lot of stress at the balance sheet level,” said Blackbourn. “And it’s not being helped by property-level performance.” In many Sunbelt markets, especially those with pandemic-era construction booms, organic NOI growth is flat or negative. Rent collection is delayed, staffing is inconsistent, and delinquencies are rising. “We’re seeing situations where it’s taking all month to get the rents collected,” he noted. “You’d be at the 15th of the month with less than 50% of rents in the door.” Yet distress sales remain rare. Why? Blackbourn offers two reasons: Lender tactics: Debt funds are “hope-certificating” properties, granting extensions, persuading sponsors to inject capital, and delaying the inevitable. Human psychology: “There’s a survival instinct at work,” he observed. “People will do whatever they can to stay in the game.” What Keeps Deals Frozen? Everyone is waiting. Borrowers, lenders, and investors are all betting on falling interest rates to solve their problems. But Blackbourn remains skeptical. “I don’t think it’s inevitable that rates come down,” he said. “And yet, it’s within the debt fund’s interest to persuade borrowers that they will.” Many current valuations are premised on that hope. But even if rates do drop, the bid-ask spread remains wide. In his words, “It feels like this really taut balloon; fragile.” Why Aren’t Cap Rates Rising Faster? One of the stranger dynamics in today’s market is that cap rates haven’t risen much, despite the Fed holding policy rates above 5%. High-quality assets are still trading at 5%–5.25% caps. How is that possible? “If you have the right basis, you can sell into that,” Blackbourn explained. “The pricing for high-quality assets hasn’t jumped that much.” But for vintage assets, pricing capitulation is coming. Lenders are forcing assets to market when no other solutions are viable. And while buyers are circling, few are pouncing. Supply, Demand, and the Surprise of Absorption Another surprise: absorption is holding up remarkably well. “We’re seeing absorption that’s about keeping up with supply,” Blackbourn noted. “In some markets, we’re about to hit the point where we’re absorbing more units than we’re adding.” This matters. Historically, once net absorption overtakes new deliveries, rents begin to recover, often before occupancy hits 95%. And that could happen sooner than expected in markets like Phoenix. “We’re modeling that inflection point this year,” he said. But again, bifurcation matters. New Class A developments are attracting high-income renters, people who once would have bought homes. Meanwhile, vintage B and C properties are seeing tenants who are increasingly rent-burdened. “In new projects, we’re seeing a higher-income demographic than we’ve ever seen,...
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    44 m
  • The New Real Estate Cycle Begins

    The New Real Estate Cycle Begins
    Jul 22 2025
    A Mild Ending, A Fresh Start: Richard Barkham’s Post-CBRE View of the CRE Market The End of a Cycle - Without the Crash After 40 years in the field and a distinguished final act as Global Chief Economist at CBRE, Richard Barkham’s take on the state of commercial real estate is disarmingly calm. “This has been the mildest end of cycle that we've seen in 40 years – in fact, in my whole career,” he says. Unlike previous downturns - 1989, 2000, 2008 - which were accompanied by macroeconomic crises, today’s cycle-end feels strangely undramatic. Vacancy rates have risen, prices have declined 25-30%, and capital markets activity has bottomed out, but there’s been no systemic financial collapse. Why? In Barkham’s view, the macro cycle hasn’t ended. “We've got the end of a real estate cycle, but no end of the macro cycle.” Yet. This divergence - CRE in a correction, the economy still growing - frames his optimistic outlook for real estate. Stimulus, Not Stability The recent U.S. tax bill has added short-term fuel to the macro picture. Barkham describes it as a “stimulatory” package: it injects fiscal stimulus into an already resilient economy, even if the longer-term consequences include rising national debt and pressure on Treasury yields. "There’s a degree of stimulus in that bill… which will allow a certain amount of certainty, confidence and stimulus to boost growth.” But not all stimulus is equal. Barkham worries that “the higher the debt-to-GDP ratio goes, the more upward pressure there is on the ten-year Treasury,” which forms the basis for CRE pricing. He sees an elevated 10-year yield, anchored in the 4–4.5% range, as a likely headwind for valuations, particularly for highly levered deals. Still, he believes the U.S. economy can absorb this, at least for now. “The U.S. isn’t going to fall over,” he says. “The tax bill will boost growth, but it will also keep the ten-year Treasury elevated.” Banks Are Lending Cautiously Contrary to headlines about a $950 billion wall of maturities and doom-laden refinancing cliffs, Barkham is sanguine about debt markets. He credits both the structural health of CRE and the Fed’s deft handling of last year’s banking turbulence. “Banks have been very, very unwilling to take loans back,” he explains. “Where assets can still service loans, banks have been willing to extend… There might have been some cash in refinancing, but the wall of debt is a non-issue, frankly.” Even deregulation in the new tax bill could loosen credit conditions further. Barkham predicts larger banks will expand their share of real estate lending as capital requirements ease. “That just broadens the source of debt, which is good for market liquidity,” he says. The Start of a New Real Estate Cycle While macro conditions may be mid-to-late cycle, CRE is in Barkham’s view at the start of a new cycle. The real estate cycle that began in 2014 has ended, and signs of early recovery - vacancy stabilization, limited new construction, and a flight to quality - are evident. “You’ve got all the inventory from the last cycle… people are moving into newer, better assets,” he says. “Eventually, when that runs out, new development resumes. But we’re not there yet.” He sees real estate as “very investable right now,” particularly for those concerned about inflation. “If we are in a higher inflation environment - with the stimulus, with the pressure on the Fed politically to bring down interest rates - then I think it’s a good time to invest in real estate.” Inflation, Interest Rates, and the Fed’s Delicate Dance Barkham’s macroeconomic outlook is nuanced. While he acknowledges the Fed may eventually ease, trade tariffs and domestic manufacturing policies could delay rate cuts by adding inflationary pressure. “It’ll take a while for the Fed to make sure tariffs don’t feed into second and third round inflation,” he notes. He pays special attention to real interest rates - the difference between nominal rates and inflation expectations - as a signal of latent financial stress. If inflation surprises to the downside, as it has recently, real rates rise and that can squeeze assets across the economy. But he tempers this with perspective. “Real estate tends to do quite well over the long term. Not necessarily in the six- or 12-month period, but over time.” Sectors to Watch: Healthcare, Digital, and Travel Demographics and technology shape Barkham’s long-term sector views. He sees aging as a structural tailwind but cautions against oversimplifying it. The boomer generation, now in their 60s and early 70s, are not just healthcare consumers, they’re also travelers. “Those are prime-age travelers,” he notes. “If you're looking for sectors that are going to benefit from boomer retirement, look at travel… everything ...
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    46 m
  • CRE’s Next Threat: Uninsurable Assets

    CRE’s Next Threat: Uninsurable Assets
    Jul 15 2025
    The Uninsurable Future: How Climate-Driven Insurance Risk is Reshaping Real Estate The Canary in the CRE Coal Mine If insurance is the canary in the coal mine for climate risk, then the bird has stopped singing. That’s the warning from Dave Jones, former California Insurance Commissioner and current Director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley. In a conversation that touches on reinsurance markets, mortgage delinquencies, lender behavior, and regulatory dysfunction, Jones laid out the most sobering climate-related CRE risk analysis to date: we are already living through a systemic insurance crisis—and commercial real estate is not exempt. “We are marching steadily towards an uninsurable areas in this country,” Jones warns. From Homeowners to High-Rises: What the Data Shows Much of the early distress has been observed in the residential and small business markets, where data is more publicly available. A study by the Dallas Fed, cited by Jones, found a direct correlation between areas hardest hit by climate events and surging insurance premiums, non-renewals, and mortgage delinquencies. But commercial real estate isn’t insulated. While pricing data is less transparent due to looser filing requirements, Jones states, “everything that I’ve seen indicates that those [commercial] rates are going up too,” particularly in regions where catastrophic climate events are becoming more frequent and severe. Take Florida. One of our clients’ office tower's premiums jumped from $300,000 to $1.2 million in a single renewal cycle. That’s straight off the bottom line. The hit is entirely non-accretive; it’s pure cost. The Feedback Loop: Insurance, Lending, and Liquidity As insurance availability shrinks and prices soar, lending dries up. Lenders want to see that there is property and casualty insurance yet, as it becomes harder to get, that has implications in credit markets… and flow-through implications to the real economy. It’s not just anecdotal. Jones references studies showing that banks are offloading loans insured by lower-rated, higher-risk insurers to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, effectively shifting the risk onto taxpayers. That means if a hurricane hits and the house is knocked down, there isn’t insurance available, potentially because the insurance company went insolvent. The trend is clear: insurance stress is bleeding into credit markets and weakening the foundations of the entire real estate financing stack. The “Deregulation” Illusion Some states, like Florida, are trying to respond by loosening regulatory constraints to attract insurers. Jones is skeptical. “Florida rates are four times the national average,” he says. The state has adopted taxpayer-funded reinsurance schemes, weakened litigation protections, and allowed less-robust rating agencies to operate. Still, “the national branded home insurers are not writing in Florida… they can’t make a profit,” says Jones. “So even with all these changes, the background risk is too great.” In short: deregulation cannot solve a fundamentally unprofitable underwriting environment driven by climate volatility. Adaptation Isn’t Being Priced In - Yet Jones is more optimistic about resilience measures. Home hardening, defensible space, and forest management, especially in wildfire-prone states like California, can materially reduce losses. Commercial insurers often have engineering staff to assess and recommend these strategies. But the industry hasn’t kept pace. “Insurers, by and large, are not accounting for property, community, and landscape-scale adaptation and resilience in their models,” Jones says. One exception is Colorado, which passed a law requiring insurers to factor in proven risk mitigation. This could prove to be a model for commercial markets, but it’s early and insurers remain price takers in the face of mounting losses. From Reinsurance to Municipal Bonds: Signals to Watch What market signals should CRE investors monitor? Jones suggests: Insurance pricing and non-renewals: leading indicators of distress. Reinsurance costs: though recently softening, they’ve trended upward for years. Lender behavior: especially offloading risky loans to agencies. Rating agency downgrades: particularly for municipalities facing severe climate risk. Housing market mispricing: First Street Foundation estimates as much as $1 trillion in residential overvaluation due to underpriced climate risk. Any of these could tip the balance in specific markets or signal a broader inflection point. A Slow Collapse or a Sudden Shock? Is this a long-term crisis or a fast-moving one? “It’s happening in real time now,” says Jones. “It’s more likely that this will be a steady glide into uninsurability… as opposed to one catastrophic event that brings the whole house of cards down.” Still, the metaphor is ...
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    52 m