Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner, has been growing increasingly worried about commercial real estate. He believes a storm is brewing in the sector that could engulf the banks and impact the broader market.
“The buildings don’t go away,” Buffett said at the May 2023 Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) shareholders meeting. “But the owners do,” Munger chimed in.
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“I think that the hollowing out of the downtowns, in the United States and elsewhere in the world, is going to be significant and quite unpleasant,” Munger said, adding he believes that the U.S. economy will weather the storm eventually but that commercial real estate will eventually “involve a different set of owners.”
Munger’s bear case
Munger and Buffett’s concerns could be based on the fact that foot traffic near stores in metropolitan areas is 10% to 20% below pre-pandemic levels while office attendance is 30% lower than before COVID, according to a recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey. The report predicts that, because of these trends and other factors, demand for office space could still be almost 20% lower in 2030 than it was in 2019.
That’s bad news for commercial landlords. It’s worse news for their lenders. Munger said in an April interview with the Financial Times that the U.S. banking sector was “full of … bad loans” in the commercial real estate sector. Eventually, higher interest rates, lower rental income and resulting lower property values could send some of these loans underwater — meaning that the outstanding balance will be greater than the value of the underlying properties.
However, the pain doesn’t necessarily mean opportunity for investors like Munger. “Berkshire has never really been active in commercial real estate,” he said during a Q&A session with CNBC’s Becky Quick at the May shareholder meeting. “It works better for taxable investors than it does for corporations taxed the way Berkshire is.”
Instead, the billionaire investor duo seems to have spotted a lucrative opportunity in another segment of the real estate market.
Instead of focusing on commercial real estate, Berkshire Hathaway is more actively involved in residential property development, having added stakes in several homebuilders in recent months.
The portfolio now includes sizable positions in D.R. Horton (DHI), Lennar (LEN), and NVR (NVR). A potential boom in homebuilding could benefit them all.
According to the National Association of Realtors, there is a housing shortage of between 5.5 to 6.8 million units. That’s because there have been more households formed than homes built over the past decade since the Great Financial Crisis. Now that lumber prices are lower and there’s persistent demand, investors are betting on a housing boom.
Retail investors can also get involved in this space through a publicly listed homebuilder or the S&P SPDR Homebuilder ETF (XHB).
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.
The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.
The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.
The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.
QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.
Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
