TOP TAKEAWAYS: CALIFORNIA MBA’S 2023 WESTERN STATES CREF

The following are Slatt Capital’s primary takeaways from this week’s California MBA’s 2023 Western States CREF Conference held at the Aria Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

• Attendance was over 800 people. The attendees were positive about the commercial real estate space despite uncertainty in the market. The mood/energy at the conference as a whole was great.
• Contradictory to many attendees’ predictions at last year’s event, interest rates have risen quite a bit. However, many are optimistic that rates will stabilize or decline in early-mid 2024.
• Multi-family, Industrial, multi-tenant Retail, and Hospitality are in favor with lenders. Office product continues to be untouchable by many lenders with exceptions for specific medical office space.
• Lenders have been increasingly cautious about where they place their dollars. Hesitations and  pauses throughout the year have many lenders behind pace to place their annual allocation.
• Private debt funds have stepped up to fill the void left by the banking industry failures earlier in the year.
• Over $1.3 trillion of commercial mortgages are set to mature in 2023 and 2024, combined with rising interest rates has many concerned.
• Despite so much uncertainty in the market, there continues to be many with an optimistic outlook for the CREF industry heading into 2024.

We would like to thank everyone at the California MBA for hosting such a wonderful event, and we look forward to seeing everyone next year.