Talk about exquisite timing.
Even today, a decade after the fact, the leveraged buyout of Equity Office Properties Trust remains one of the largest of all time: $36 billion for nearly 600 office buildings in New York, Washington D.C. and dozens of the nation’s largest cities.
But in late 2006, some wondered if the billionaire who sold the REIT was being a little rash. After all, the real estate boom was in full swing, and the S&P 500 was primed to hit new all-time highs. “Is he cashing out too early?” asked a Bloomberg headline when the deal was announced.
We all know the answer, of course.
Billionaire Sam Zell deftly sidestepped the coming real estate carnage. Then, with prices at generational lows a few years later, Zell bought hundreds of apartment complexes at dirt-cheap prices.
And today? Well, that’s the ominous part…
Once again, Zell is selling his real estate holdings. Last fall, he unloaded a quarter of his portfolio, buildings totaling about 23,000 rental apartments, to Starwood Capital Group for more than $5 billion.
Zell next sold off apartment buildings in South Florida and Denver, with complexes in Phoenix, Boston and other metro areas expected to be sold before the year is out.
“No one has ever accused me of not being a realist,” Zell told CNBC’s talking heads recently.
Reality Bites
Few things are more real than the threat of rising interest rates. Concerned about the Fed’s late-to-the-party threats and distorted capital markets drunk on years of zero-interest-rate policy, Zell is getting out while the getting is still good.
In the past few months, new-home sales hit their highest level in eight years. Pending home sales rose by the largest percentage gain in a decade.
Even home flipping is back in vogue again. RealtyTrac, measuring 2015 data, estimated a 75% increase in active home flippers — the highest since 2007.
Nationally, the average gross profit on a flipped home was $55,000 — the largest since 2006.
But for the realists like Zell, the widening cracks in the facade are plain to see.
For instance, apartment rent is starting to come down in New York and San Francisco — two of the hottest markets in the country. There is simply too much supply and not enough demand.
A few weeks ago, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston warned about overheated speculation in the commercial real estate market. “We care about potentially inflated commercial real estate prices,” said the bank’s president, Eric Rosengren, “because they might risk a bout of financial instability.”
Translated from “Fedspeak,” Rosengren was saying: Get out now.
Even those ultra ultraluxury homes in the $100 million and up range aren’t selling. It’s a rarefied market, for sure, but The New York Times recently noted that a record 27 properties, each with a nine-figure price tag, are languishing unsold on the market. According to figures kept by Christie’s International Real Estate, 19 such homes were on the market in 2015 and 12 in 2014.
Late last year, I wrote about one of those massive palazzos here in Florida — the beachside $159 million, 60,000 square foot Le Palais Royal. It’s still for sale.
Perhaps the extra gold leaf they painted on the front security gate will help.
Beware the Peak
I can’t see Sam Zell taking up residence in Le Palais Royal. But then again, he sold his office properties in 2006, and watched the market crack wide open a year later. Now he’s unloading his real estate portfolio again, so, who knows?
Our own Chad Shoop, editor of Pure Income, has warned that the housing sector is starting to wave red flags and that it might be a good time to position yourself to profit from a pullback within housing.
If history repeats, Zell just might find his next great distressed real estate bargains in the palatial homes of the (once) superrich — dazzling jewels of the “new” gilded age now past its prime.
Kind regards,
JL Yastine
Editorial Director
