Invest in Apartments in Loves Park Today

Apartments in Loves Park are still a good investment, but for more fundamental reasons than during the past eight years. What I mean by this is apartments have always been a good investment. Unlike other commercial real estate investments, apartments are tied much more to residential trends and demographics. Starting in 2010 and continuing through early 2018, the fallout from the crash and recession created an imbalance in homeownership that gave rise to an increase in apartment rental rates.

The rent increase directly correlates to an increase in the value of apartment buildings. But apartments are still a good investment for traditional reasons versus heavy appreciation, even with changing circumstances such as rising interest rates, rising property taxes and a potential recession. If investors focus on property fundamentals, hone their investment strategy and conservatively underwrite for today’s market, apartments are still a high-performing investment in 2019.

Focus On Fundamentals

If you focus on the fundamentals and invest for the long term, apartments in Loves Park are still the most compelling product type in commercial real estate. The key reason for this is simple, if trite: People always need a place to live. For investing in apartment buildings, remember three fundamental factors of location, value-add and underwriting.

Location is the primary factor for any real estate investment, but what makes a location good varies by product type (residential, industrial, office, apartment, retail, etc.). For apartments inLoves Park, good location usually means easy access to centers for employment and transportation (e.g., public or highway access).

Hone Investment Strategy

Value-add means ways to increase the value of your property. Increasing the net operating income (NOI) of the property despite the market in general projecting flatness for NOI is one of the best ways. The obvious is making physical improvements that result in higher rent (i.e., new kitchen cabinets). The less obvious maybe how to decrease expenses or create better operational efficiencies. Other ways to add value may have to do with overall returns over the lifespan of the investment. A trend right now for achieving this is investing in Opportunity Zones. These investments reduce or eliminate your capital gains, thus significantly increasing your overall returns.

Conservatively Underwrite

Underwriting means carefully analyzing all of the income and expense related to an investment, including a conservative proforma of the changes expected, looking at financing options and determining what your return on investment will be at the purchase price being contemplated. Set a threshold you have to achieve and hold yourself to it. If your target is 10%, underwrite honestly and conservatively and do not invest if you cannot get the numbers to cross that minimum threshold.

Apartments in Loves Park remain a solid commercial real estate investment class — if not still the golden child. Getting back to the fundamentals described above should result in a long-term appreciating asset and a meaningful return on investment.