Hampton Roads January 2022 Key Take Aways!

Richard Crouch – Vandeventer Black -

• Expecting to be busy through the first quarter and just waiting for the next big wave.
• In terms of actual acquisitions, most are multi-family with a fair amount of sales taking place in the office space sector as well.
• One of the trends noticed more and more frequent in purchase and sale agreements that survive closing is making sure that reserve funds are available to cover unexpected obligations.

Chris Ambrosio - Vandeventer Black 

• Multifamily seem to be the hot asset to trade on the investment side, and cap rates for multifamily at the moment are extremely low.
• In regards to offshore wind, most of the European countries that are involved in bringing off shore wind to the US are comfortable using the same manufacturers and supply chain they have used for years. With these countries having involvement in offshore wind for almost 30 years, they tend to stick to what they are comfortable with, rather than shift things such as manufacturing to local companies here.

Don Crigger – Colliers 

• Some of the top production from the company has been the multifamily arena.
• Another top-class asset that is emerging is single family rentals. Large developments of single-family homes that are built specifically for the purpose of being rentals, with no intent to sell.
• This is designed for those who want the amenities of homeownership, without buying
• Expect 2022 and 2023 to have a lot of transactions of all kinds. Starting to see more than just one-year extensions on properties, and customers are committing to more long term deals.
• In regard to clients that are expanding office space vs cutting office space.
• There is no real trend as far as which clients are giving up space vs those who are acquiring it.
• If one trend is to be noticed, it is those clients that have a non-collaborative type of work.

Ben Anderson – Colliers 

• Landlords and sellers continue to have the upper hand in this market.
• Not much has changed in the industrial market.
• Current problem is the need for more inventory.

Dan Shelton – Whiting-Turner 

• Healthcare continues to remain strong.
• Still currently dealing with a lot of lead time issues and trying to convey that to customers.
• The company is exploring the wind energy pretty heavily just to see if we can integrate into that space. 

Jon Berotti – Whiting-Turner 

• Feels pricing is going to finally come down and expects that by the end of the year, prices should begin to normalize on certain materials.

Greg Schmitt – Kimley Horn 

• Service industry is staying hot. One client is looking to expand 200 sites from Maryland down through North Carolina.
• Car washes are blowing up.
• Trying to get more into the multifamily space.  
• Higher end deals are coming back around.
• The company had a record year last year and are projecting a similar year for 2922.

Josh Gerloff – RRMM Architects 

• Despite the pandemic and dealing with the many adjustments in daily routines, 2021 proved to be the second best year in the history of our company.
• Higher end deals and retail are doing fantastic.
• Biggest threat is lack of manpower, specifically higher level, senior level, licensed architect staff.
• For the first time ever, they have had to start turning down work because we don’t have the manpower. 

Keith Slattum – Dollar Bank

• Huge spike in longer- and shorter-term interest rates.
• The 30-year mortgage rate has moved up, currently somewhere around 3.75%.
• Inflation is real. You can see this in certain products as well as in the quality of the products.
• Inflation is also visible in energy as well.
• Over 200 million dollars in deals were closed last year.
• Loan deposit rations have hit record lows since the 70s.
• The current past dues on loans is the lowest it has been in 40 years. The current credit quality of the average customers is very good.
• Banks are doing extremely well and are looking to do a lot more loans.