CAPREIT made headlines with its acquisition of a 978-unit affordable housing portfolio in Richmond, Va., last year.
It’s one of the big moves the firm has made since Andrew Kadish became president of the Rockville, Md.–based firm in 2015.
How does affordable housing fit into your business and its future plans?
Kadish shares why that deal was good and what’s coming up next for a firm that has nearly 14,000 affordable and market-rate units
throughout several regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, northern Midwest, and Texas. CAPREIT has also entered California, where it owns and manages several properties in the Bay Area and is looking to expand.
Affordable housing is a core part of our business line. At this juncture, we’re about 50-50, give or take a couple of percentage points, in terms of our market-rate and affordable housing holdings. I would say for the next several years, it’s probably going to be along those 50-50 lines. It may be skewed a little more toward affordable holdings due to the insane and tremendous focus on value-add market-rate deals in the landscape right now and the dearth of affordable housing stock and workforce housing.
What are your goals for this year?
On the affordable side, we’re looking forward to increasing units under management, both in our own communities as well as our third-party management platform. We manage several thousand units for clients right now, both affordable and market-rate.
In addition to the acquisition and management activity, we have a great training program for our associates, but we’re looking forward to increasing more tech into our training. More videos, more webinars, and more resources dedicated to training our associates. We think it’s going to really help us out especially on the compliance side of the equation. Our compliance staff is all in-house. We do an excellent job now, but we feel we can do even better. We want to get more training out to our associates, not only on the management side but also on the maintenance and preventative maintenance side. Furthermore, it will help us respond to disability questions and fair housing regulations
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What did the acquisition of the nearly 1,000-unit Virginia portfolio say about CAPREIT?
It said several things about us as a company in the affordable housing arena. First and foremost, it was an exemplary acquisition for us. Our acquisition strategy is focused on secondary and tertiary markets, and Richmond is absolutely a secondary market where we think we excel.
No. 2, it demonstrates CAPREIT’s commitment to acquiring and managing affordable housing stock as a core part of our focus. No. 3, it demonstrates CAPREIT’s ability to acquire a large portfolio. It provides a measure of calm to those sellers out there and to the brokerage firms that are looking for a good buyer who is able to complete a large acquisition such as this.
Is CAPREIT a family business?
My dad, Dick Kadish, started the firm back in 1993 with Ernie Heymann, who serves as the chief investment officer, and Rick Band, senior vice president of acquisitions. They’re all still with the firm. My dad bumped himself up to board chairman when I was appointed president. My sister, Jennifer, is chief administrative officer.
