Theo is back with another Syndication School episode and this time he is going over the adjustments to make when underwriting deals during this pandemic.
To listen to other Syndication School series about the “How To’s” of apartment syndications and to download your FREE document, visit SyndicationSchool.com. Thank you for listening and I will talk to you tomorrow.
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TRANSCRIPTION
Joe Fairless: There needed to be a resource on apartment syndication that not only talked about each aspect of the syndication process, but how to actually do each of the things, and go into it in detail… And we thought “Hey, why not make it free, too?” That’s why we launched Syndication School.
Theo Hicks will go through a particular aspect of apartment syndication on today’s episode, and get into the details of how to do that particular thing. Enjoy this episode, and for more on apartment syndication and how to do things, go to apartmentsyndication.com, or to learn more about the Apartment Syndication School, go to syndicationschool.com, so you can listen to all the previous episodes.
Theo Hicks: Hi, Best Ever listeners. Welcome to another episode of the Syndication School series, a free resource focused on the how-to’s of apartment syndication. As always, I am your host, Theo Hicks.
Each week we air two podcast episodes that focus on a specific aspect of the apartment syndication investment strategy. For the majority of these episodes we offer a free resource that will help you along your apartment syndication journey. All of these free resources, as well as free Syndication School episodes can be found at SyndicationSchool.com.
In this episode we’re going to go back to talking about the Coronavirus. We took off about a week or so, and we’re gonna jump back into it because today I want to talk about some of the changes that Joe and Ashcroft Capital are making to their underwriting of value-add apartment deals during and then probably after the Coronavirus pandemic.
The purpose of this episode is going to be to outline the four main changes that Ashcroft Capital is making to the underwriting of new deals currently, and then for the — I won’t say foreseeable future, but at least for maybe the next few months after the Coronavirus pandemic is over.
Overall, the underwriting changes really need to be on a deal-by-deal basis, because different markets have different rules as it relates to Coronavirus. This means that the economy is being impacted differently… But there are a few items – four items in fact – that Ashcroft thinks are important to consider.
First is going to be year one operations. It should be expected that there will be an increase in things like vacancy, bad debt and concessions throughout 2020. And then once things settle down a bit and the economy reopens, it is also possible that some residents will no longer be able to afford living at the property. So the two things – number one, some of the income loss items, like vacancy, bad debt and concessions. When you’re making your assumptions, you should be projecting that they will be higher than usual. Based off of the T-12 or current market rates, you can’t really use those for vacancy, bad debt and concessions right now, because it’s a different environment, and once the Coronavirus ends, it will also likely be a different environment.
Secondly, once the economy reopens, the residents that are currently living at that property – so if you buy a property now, once rent repayment programs are ended, or rent delays are ended, evictions are allowed again, maybe expect to have to evict more tenants than you usually have to, because they’ve just been living there and maybe paying partial rent, or just doing what they could… But once it’s over, they can no longer pay the full amount. That’s year-one operations.
Number two is rent growth. The rent growth for 2020 in the vast majority of markets is projected to suffer, as unemployment rises. But the silver lining is that most of any rent lost in 2020 is expected to be recovered in 2021. From my understanding – I believe I’ve talked about this in one of the episodes – the rent growth is supposed to suffer; rent growth isn’t gonna go negative, it’s just going to be less. I’m pretty sure the most recent calculation I saw was about 1.3% percent, as opposed to 2%, 3%, 4% we’ve been seeing for the past decade or so.
Apparently, this dip is supposed to be temporary… So this dip in rent growth to the 1% range is temporary, and then in 2021 it’s supposed to go back to what it has been before. Obviously, when you’re underwriting a deal, the year one rent growth and year two rent growth should reflect the immediate area and the demand in the market. So obviously, you don’t wanna just use the 1% average. You wanna figure out “Okay, what do the experts think will happen to rent in this specific market in the next two years?” And then probably be even more conservative and assume that it might be less than that. That way if it’s better, great. If not, then you’re still able to hit your returns to your investors.
Where does this information come from? Your management company. We’ve talked about the importance of your property management company, how to find a property management company, so you can find all that information at SyndicationSchool.com.
Number three is going to be debt. As of right now, most private lenders – these are basically the bridge lenders; the ones that do the 2-3 year renovation type loans – are taking a pause from lending. But lenders that are still active are being extremely conservative with their loan proceeds and terms.
I talked in a previous Syndication School episode about JP Morgan Chase, for example, has changed their lending criteria; this is for residential loans, I understand that, but it’s just an example of a lender becoming extremely conservative. They’re only lending to borrowers with a credit score of 700 or more, and who can put down 20% or more. So that definitely limits the pool of people who can get residential mortgages.
Similarly, other lenders are doing the same for commercial loans. I think one of the biggest changes is the reserve amounts that are required. Now, the agencies are lending, but they are also being conservative on their underwriting and requiring large upfront reserves for debt service payments. So the reserve requirements are changing. Typically, you create an upfront reserves account called an operating account for unexpected things that happen at the property, but now in addition to that you need another upfront amount of reserves that are a lender requirement.
So more conservatives proceeds should be underwritten, and the underwriting needs to include these upfront reserves, as they will impact the equity required to fund. So you’re gonna need to raise additional money now from your investors, even though the cashflow is not going to be going up. Typically, if the deal is cash-flowing $100 per door and you need to raise X amount of money, well now that deal might be cash-flowing $75 per door and you need to raise even more money from your investors. That’s why if you’re looking at deals right now, you’re gonna have to negotiate a lower purchase price because of these new lending criteria, and the rent growth, and the year-one operations that I’ve talked about previously.
So what does that mean more practically? Make sure that you ask your lender or your mortgage broker about the new loan-to-value requirements, the new upfront reserves requirements, and other terms that you need before you submit an offer on a deal. So you need to have an understanding of whatever lender you’ve been using or you plan on using, what are the terms of the loans they’re offering, what are the LTV terms, how much money do you need to put down, how much money do you need as upfront reserves, what are the interest rates, what’s the amortization? Is there anything that I need to know that’s changing, so that I can underwrite my deals properly? Because if you don’t know what the debt is going to be, it’s gonna be impossible to submit correct offers on deals.
And then lastly, for value-add deals, depending on the deal, many owners are pausing their interior renovation programs until the market is restabilized… So when you’re underwriting a deal, it may be wise to assume that the value-add program does not start until the overall market stabilizes.
Now, this is something that’s gonna be obviously up to you, depending on the state you’re investing in, or the local area you’re investing in, if construction is considered an essential service, if construction companies are still working, things like that… But you need to think about “Okay, I plan on going in there, renovating all these units and doing all these exterior upgrades”, but what are the typical ways that you renovate interiors? Exterior renovations are likely fine, assuming that business is essential in your state, but interior renovations is the one that might be delayed because of the fact that residents aren’t able to move out right now.
So again, to summarize, the four changes that Ashcroft are making – and again, these four points came straight from the director of acquisitions at Ashcroft Capital – is the year-one operations. Things like vacancy, bad debt and concessions should be assumed to be higher, at least during year one. Rent growth should be assumed to be lower than previous years, so whenever you’re underwriting your annual rent growth increases, or even when you’re determining what your rent premiums are going to be, you need to have a detailed conversation with your property management company to determine how to calculate that. So annual income growth is typically 2%-3%. You definitely wanna be underwriting maybe a 1% or 1,5% at least for year one and year two… And then when it comes to rent premiums, again, you have to see what’s the demand for those units in the immediate area? What are the prices on the newest leases in that area? It can’t be leases from a year ago or six months ago, or really even two months ago. It needs to be probably within the last few weeks to a month – what are the rents being demanded for those specific units?
Number three is debt, so making sure you have a conversation with your lender, so you know exactly what types of terms they’re offering on their loans now, including what sort of upfront reserves requirements are needed.
And then lastly, for the value-add deals, understanding that you’re likely going to need to delay any interior renovations until the market restabilizes and Covid is gone, because you’re not allowed to evict people, tenants are probably moving a lot less because of the Coronavirus… So those are four things to keep in mind when underwriting deals.
Obviously, if you are out there underwriting deals, I’d love to hear from you what you’re doing, so we can maybe add to these four points. So if you have any advice, any things that you’re doing differently when underwriting, please let me know by emailing Theo@JoeFairless.com. And of course, anyone who reaches out and I include their information – obviously, it won’t be in this episode, but I’m gonna turn this into a blog post, so I will definitely give you a contributor status for the blog post, since you contributed to underwriting advice to the document.
That concludes this episode. To listen to other Syndication School series about the how-to’s of apartment syndication and check out some of our free documents, please visit SyndicationSchool.com.
Thank you for listening, have a best ever day, and I will talk to you soon.
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