MBANow: CREF Corner Office Conversation with Shekar Narasimhan, CMB

The Mortgage Bankers Association released a new MBANow video featuring a CREF Corner Office conversation with Shekar Narasimhan, CMB, Managing Partner with Beekman Advisors.

Narasimhan shared his perspective on mergers and acquisition trends, the multifamily market and how some Beekman Advisors clients view the market.

The video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/f_tpaVA3gAQ.

In CREF Corner Office conversations, MBA talks one-on-one with a diverse set of commercial real estate finance leaders about their business and engagement with the industry. Narasimhan is a member of MBA’s Commercial Board of Governors and served as COMBOG’s first chair.

“There’s nothing wrong with the debt markets and there’s nothing wrong with the state of the capital markets,” Narasimhan said. “However, at today’s valuations with continued low cap rates and interest rates, we’re getting lulled.”

Narasimhan compared the concept of investors getting accustomed to accepting lower returns and higher valuations to being high. “What happens when you change from being high to something else…it tends to be a very dramatic feeling,” he said. “We’re about to get that shock.”

But Narasimhan conceded the question of when this change might occur is a tough one.

Narasimhan also discussed the multifamily sector’s “impressive” performance during the last few years and where he sees the market headed. He said the tremendous rent growth for apartment owners in recent years is both a positive for the markets and a significant public policy challenge as affordability is a growing concern for renters. The dynamics of sustained rent growth have played out while incomes have not kept up with rising rental costs, he said.

Other videos in the MBANow series can be viewed at the MBANow website: https://www.mba.org/get-involved/stay-connected/mba-now.