Feb 25 2025 3 mins
J Darrin Gross:
I'd like to ask you, Matt Spagnalo, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Matt Spagnolo:
Yeah, I would say the biggest risk in multi family has to be interest rates, right? Interest rates are something in I like to say the biggest risks, at least with what we do at colony, is something that we can't control, right? We believe in our team and the systems and processes that we've put in place, what we can control, we can live with with that, right? But what's tough is the items that we can't control, like you said, insurance and interest rates. So we've made a shift to help on the insurance side of things. Right? If the properties we had invested in Texas and in Florida in the southeast that maybe are seeing a higher jump in insurance, we are going to these properties in the northeast, like I mentioned, we're making that shift geographically. The insurance number itself might be high in the northeast, but the only thing that we care about as an operator is what is the year over year change? As long as that's consistent and relatively predictable, that's what's important to us, right? Because we can underwrite to that. But if you're in some of these states where it's very unpredictable, you could see a huge increase one year, and then it flat lines for a year or two, and then there's another massive increase. That volatility is something that that worries us. So we are going to markets where the year over year change, regardless of how expensive it is, is consistent and is relatively predictable, and has been for 15 to 20 years. So that's something that we're doing to try to eliminate that insurance risk, however, interest rates, one, nobody knows where they're going. And two, if they did, they probably wouldn't, wouldn't be working. They'd be they'd be on wall street somewhere. But right, it's up to the Fed to kind of control the Fed funds rate, and then that will also affect some of the other rates that we see in multifamily right? And even with Fed funds rate coming down, we've seen that the 10 year has has gone even higher recently. So that's that's something that we can't control. What we can do is make sure that we're buying our deals right at a good cost basis, but the sale right our cap rates, what we're buying and what we're selling at, really just depends on what the interest rate is. I mentioned earlier. We want to buy with that positive leverage. If the buyer on the back end of a deal that we are selling is using the same strategy, their purchase price is going to move not depending on the income of the property, but on what the interest rate is, right, if they have to get a new loan. So that's that's such a risk, and it's a very big one. But if we think that interest rates are going to find some sort of normalcy, or flat out, or flat line here, between that four to 6% range, I think that's something that we would, we would love to see, is, is some stability, right? Regardless of what the number is, just again the year over year change being consistent. So to answer your question, I'd have to pick interest rate risk.