Jim Andrews of Capital One Commercial Banking served as the guest speaker for the April Gulf South Mastermind Group meeting, and he presented members with a wealth of data points on a number of financial topics. One such measure Andrews discussed involved the number of multi-family deals that have recently been worked in Mobile County. He said that throughout 2016 and year-to-date in 2017, there have been 199 deals in excess of $3 million in Mobile County alone, with 50 of those deals involving multi-family developments.
Of those transactions, some 80 percent involved buyers based in Alabama, a fact which is unusual enough to draw attention. During his talk, Andrews also discussed cap rates and the dynamics that are currently driving them locally and nationwide. He said that while national developers may be willing to accept a six or seven cap rate, local developers are somewhat skittish about anything over five because of the perceived risk involved.