Key Take-Aways
• Neighborhood banks remain the best lenders today, especially for known clients with a track record.
• Life Insurance companies pushed the pause button, but are slowly reentering the market in industrial, manufacturing and grocery anchored retail.
• Grocery stores had to pivot quickly to accommodate home deliveries and curbside pickup – accomplished three years of retooling and planning in three months.
• Pittsburgh is still a desired market because it doesn’t boom and bust – more steady eddie. Tech companies still coming to Pitt with great higher education and cost of living.
• Still a gap in the bid / ask. Setting expectations of buyers and sellers is paramount.
• The ‘backlog of consequences’ has yet to unfold. Rent collections remain fairly stable, but we are likely to see a gradual decline. January is also a big month for bankruptcy filings.
• A big challenge today is how to value a piece of property. As loans mature, likely many will not be able to be paid off. $15B of loans are coming due. Gaps between value of the property and the balance of the loan are huge. Many lenders are considering when and if to take a property back – with many having to look solely at the land value.
• Continue to see demand from large home builders looking at large land tracks.
• In the accounting world, special projects such as PPP loans, have kept everyone very busy.
• Lots of concern about the downtown area of Pittsburgh – very few people working from the office; the question is when will they come back and how is safety being addressed in the meantime.
• Everyone is seeing more and more out of town investors looking to acquire properties in the area.
• In the office market front, many brokers are having to work more on strategy development for occupancy, with requests for lease flexibility.
• In the design space, there is a lot of activity underway in industrial, multi-family and office.
• Members AJ Pantoni and Chip Desmone and Guest Jamey Noland all contributed to a adaptive reuse project in Etna, PA which will be a game changer for the city.