Every May, we gather a small group of executives and our clients from across the housing, building products, and investment industries at a two-day conference we call The Summit. No vendors or press, just valuable insights and the forging of relationships amongst decision-makers shaping our industry.
Our clients told us that the two most important issues heading into this year’s Summit are:
- Interest rates
- Regulatory oversight, especially given fresh dislocations in the banking sector
Interest rates
The Secured Overnight Financing Rate that rental developers and owners rely on has increased from 0.1% to 4.8% since the beginning of 2022. Freddie Mac’s fixed mortgage rates rose from 3.5% in January 2022 to 7.1% in October 2022 before falling to 6.3% recently.
On day one of our Summit conference, we’ll be joined by James ‘Jim’ Grant, founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and esteemed economic historian/author. The focus of our conversation will be interest rates, inflation, and the Federal Reserve’s ever-expanding influence. Jim recently spotlighted some of these topics in a Bloomberg Markets interview (fast forward to the 23:45 mark for a thought-provoking eight-minute discussion). At our upcoming Summit conference, I’m sure Jim will help our clients glean even more interest rate lessons from the past, implications for the economy today, and insights into the future.
Regulatory Risk
Most believe that regulators will react by overreacting, given the recent collapses of multiple banks and the violent run on deposits at many banks.
On day two of our Summit conference, we’ll be joined by Mark Calabria, senior advisor to the Cato Institute and former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates and supervises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Mark also recently joined Bloomberg Markets for an interview (fast forward to the 14:00 mark), highlighting recent banking sector fragility and regulatory oversteps likely on the horizon. In March, Mark released his new book titled “Shelter from the Storm: How a COVID Mortgage Meltdown Was Averted,” which is sure to tee up some eye-opening behind-the-scenes insights for clients during our one-on-one conversation.
Other speakers and topics include:
- Two publicly-traded home builder CEOs on how they are finding success
- Two publicly-traded building product executives on where they see building material inflation heading
- The Global Chief Investment Officer for one of the nation’s largest real estate investment managers
- Three prominent investment executives on today’s financing challenges
- Three of the largest land owners and land bankers in the country on the raw material that starts it all
- Three private equity executives investing across the real estate sector
- Two C-suite execs at the largest single-family rental companies in America
- Multiple moderated roundtable discussions
We are looking forward to the Summit. If you have questions you would like us to address, please add those below and we will share some of the answers in June after our event.
