Anne McCulloch, president and CEO of Housing Partnership Equity Trust (HPET), participated in a video interview at Nareit’s REITworld: 2019 Annual Conference in Los Angeles.
McCulloch discussed the increased attention now being paid to affordable housing issues and noted that investors are showing more interest in the asset class.
Investors are looking at class-b and class-c assets and are realizing “that these can be great investments and deliver steady returns,” she said. That, in turn, has driven up competition. However, there’s also a good continuing supply of properties coming onto the market as traditional family owners decide to readjust their portfolios and divest, she said.
At the same time, HPET buys properties in partnership with large national and regional nonprofit affordable housing owner operators who have deep connections in their communities, which allows HPET to efficiently buy properties as they come to market, McCulloch explained.
Meanwhile, McCulloch commented on social impact investing.
“There’s no doubt that impact investing is established, but there’s a lot of distance we can go in terms of increasing the number of investors in this market,” she said.