Passive investing in real estate can be a great way to gain exposure to real estate without day-to-day management. For some investors, publicly-traded REITs are an easy entry point with high liquidity and are truly passive in nature. Alternatively, for those that want more direct holdings in real estate, buying a single-family or small multifamily property is the first step; however, for some, even the oversight of a property manager can be more work than they wish to undertake. The third option is to invest in real estate through passive syndications.
Each form of investment will have its own financial metrics that are commonly seen. I am going to focus on those that are most commonly used in the private real estate world, specifically syndications and private real estate funds.
The preferred return is a legally defined rate of return that must be hit before the general partner can begin splitting in additional cash flows. The preferred return is NOT what the annual return or annual cash flow from your investment will be. While many sponsors will pay their preferred return current at a regular interval, this is not always the case.
For example: If you invest $100,000 in an offering with a 6%/annum preferred return, simple interest, you as the LP will receive 100% of the free cash flow until you have hit 6%/annum. The actual cash flow from the deal could be $3,000/annum, paid monthly, until sale at year five. Meaning, when the property sells, you would be due back $15,000 from the sale to catch up on your preferred return before the general partner would be eligible for any carried interest.
The cash-on-cash from operations return is the actual cash flow projected to be returned over a period of time divided by the initial investment you made. This calculation would not factor in any sale proceeds, but may or may not include refinances, depending on how the sponsor models.
To continue the example above, this deal would be reflecting a 3%/annum cash-on-cash return from operations or excluding sale proceeds.
Similar to cash-on-cash from operations, this calculation adds up all the distributions received during the investment and divides by the length of time owned. This is a simple interest calculation.
Let's continue with the same example: $100,000 invested, $3,000 per year paid out over a five-year hold. When the asset is sold, the investors receive $150,000 in total sale proceeds. Investors in this instance received $165,000 back over the five-year hold, with $100,000 being the return of capital. To calculate overall cash-on-cash return: $65,000 divided by $100,000 divided by five years equals 13% average annualized cash-on-cash return, overall.
The definition of IRR is the discount rate to bring all future cash flows back to a net present value of zero. But in more simple terms, IRR looks at the timing of all cash flows and applies a discount the further into the future any respective cash flow is projected to occur (or actually occur relative to initial investment when using actuals). The purpose follows the fact that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in five years.
The IRR calculation is complex and typically calculated in Excel. But the inputs are the same as the example above: All distributions and their dates, as well as sale proceeds and dates.
Using the example above, if you invested $100,000, received quarterly distributions equating to $750/quarter and final payout at the end of five years of $150,000, your IRR for the investment is 11%.
However, if a refi occurs and produces $30,000 at the end of year two while reducing the sale proceeds to $120,000, the IRR jumps to 13%. Or if the refi occurs at the end of year one, the IRR rises to 14%.
The final common financial metric is equity multiple, which is simply the total amount of distributions, including sale proceeds, added up, and divided by your initial investment.
Using my same example: an investor in this deal who invested $100,000 and received $165,000 in total equates to a 1.65x equity multiple.
While these are not an all-inclusive list of various financial metrics, they are the most commonly used, both amongst sponsors and investors.
About the Author:
Evan is the Investor Relations Consultant for Ashcroft Capital. As such, he spends his days working with investors to better understand their investment goals and background. With over 14 years in real estate, he has seen all sides of real estate from acquisitions, to capital raising on the equity and debt side, to operations, and actively invests himself. Please feel free to connect with Evan on LinkedIn.