Daniel Fetner’s Post

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General Partner at Alpaca VC

Last week I posted on the BREIT and SREIT issues making headlines. No doubt the real estate industry continues to be in a state of dislocation – something that presents fantastic investing opportunities. Many people are asking the same question:   ❓Are the headlines that we're seeing a representative barometer of activity in the rest of the asset class?   Here’s my view:    Real Estate is a gigantic industry with many, many different product types and sub asset classes. As such, it’s advisable to examine each sector individually rather than draw broad conclusions:   To understand the health and state of the industry, you really need to look at the different sectors and geographies within real estate and form an opinion on how you think each will perform. For example:   🏢 Office: Yes, it’s getting demolished right now. Vacancy rates are at a 10-year high, unemployment's at a 50-year low, and there is fundamentally less demand for space. We forecast significant continued distress here.   🏭 Industrial: In contrast to office, industrial has continued to perform well, with Data Centers & Logistics Distribution being huge drivers of that. Both have strong tailwinds, with Data Centers housing the AI revolution and logistics fueling ecommerce fulfillment.   🏡 Residential: Highly impacted by the affordability crisis and pockets of oversupply. Single Family Rental (SFR) continues to perform well, with rents for traditional multifamily rentals in many markets flattening or moving down.   Tying all this back to Alpaca VC investment themes, here’s where we’re spending time right now:   ➡ EV Charging & Infrastructure: Power availability and the intersection of real estate and infrastructure is key to investing over the next decade. The sector has a direct impact on real estate developers and how they’re thinking through future-proofing their assets. We’ve made bets here on companies facilitating unique solutions in today’s stressed power grid (Xeal and EV Realty).   ➡ Residential: Home ownership and the institutional SFR industry, where we made a recent investment that will be announced soon.   ➡ Brokers: NAR (National Association of Realtors) and its historic settlement, which has all sorts of implications on housing and the residential brokerage community.    ➡ Industrial: Our team’s Aubrie Pagano has spent an enormous amount of time thinking through the impact of e-commerce on the supply chain and warehousing, which is obviously a major part of why industrial as a real estate sub asset class has seen a spectacular rise over the past cycle.    We’ve made investments in all these areas over the past few years, and plan to continue to find opportunities across all of these themes. To close this out, it’s important to remember that times of tremendous change bring tremendous opportunities. Amid the jitters, we continue to have conviction around the themes we’re spending time and believe they will uncover some pretty compelling investments.

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Daniel Seron

Executive Director, Thought Leader & Mentor

1mo

Thank you for this insightful post Daniel Fetner. I couldn't agree more. With so many aspects of the real estate industry under scrutiny, scarcity, or uncertainty, it's bound to shake things up and make everyone panic. It's great to see such a reputable firm prepared to tackle these changes head-on by investing in those who see the areas of opportunity. Every time there is a "crisis" there are major opportunities for growth and opportunity being born. Times like this create necessary change and those of us who've experienced it repeatedly can't help but get excited for what lies ahead. Keep up the amazing work team Alpaca VC! Excited to see what you bring to our industry next that will usher in the next chapter.

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