It’s tough to view a strong economy as bad news. Yet a firmly positive economic projection in ULI’s Real Estate Economic Forecast does not bode well for commercial real estate participants who are hoping for relief in rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

What does it take to secure debt in today’s challenging commercial real estate environment? It all boils down to experience, relationships, and a lot of creativity. That’s according to an expert panel speaking this morning at ULI’s spring meeting at the New York Hilton Midtown. The panel is the first in a series of three, which will include Raising Equity (10 a.m. Wednesday) and Borrowers’ Experiences—Recent Success Stories (10 a.m. Thursday).

Nationwide, the urgent need for more affordable housing has become crystal clear. The United States is grappling with a housing crisis, and building affordable housing has become increasingly difficult. Developers face high construction costs, ongoing supply chain issues, and skyrocketing prices for land, especially in some of the country’s largest cities. Even when a project comes together and gets financing, the process to obtain permitting, gain city approvals, and actually construct a project can take years.

City is actively working to make its neighborhoods safer and more resilient to extreme rain events

New Yorkers have gotten used to watching the sun set behind the piers and towers of Jersey City, the major metropolis of New Jersey’s so-called Gold Coast. But for many years, Jersey City’s glittering line of luxury apartments and office blocks stopped at the water’s edge. Tucked behind modern high-rises, the rest of the city was a patchwork of charming historic districts, aging apartment buildings, public housing, and contaminated, abandoned industrial sites.

Many populations and regions face well-documented housing affordability challenges. For college students, specifically, the lack of options located on or near campus creates an additional hurdle in achieving their higher education goals. The inability to affordably live close to school has a huge impact on their time, performance, expense, and quality of life—not to mention increased output of greenhouse gases. Perkins & Will is partnering with the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which receives the second-largest of number applications of any university, nationwide, to help those students by designing the largest on-campus housing project in the country.

Potential trouble brewing in a sector that has been viewed as relatively bulletproof multifamily sector is concerning. But while stress is very much real, industry participants are quick to point out that the overall foundation for multifamily remains strong. “The cracks that we’re seeing are not structural; they’re superficial,” says Vincent DiSalvo, chief investment officer at Kingbird Investment Management, a family office investment firm specializing in multifamily.

Daryl Fairweather, chief economist for real estate brokerage Redfin, will be presenting at the upcoming 2024 ULI Housing Opportunity Conference in Austin. A classically trained economist with both a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago, Fairweather previously worked at Amazon and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The next era of multifamily real estate will be led by managers that have the ability to produce alpha. The 2010s were defined by a seemingly never-ending bull market. The next cycle will remind investors of the importance of partnering with managers that apply an appropriate risk-reward analysis and have the skill and experience to add value at the real estate level to generate alpha.

ULI Asia Pacific Young Leaders hosted a forum on housing attainability in May with a focus on Australia, China, and Singapore. The event started with a short presentation by Ken Rhee, Senior Director of ULI China and the primary author of the newly released 2023 ULI Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index.