We continue to follow evolving impacts of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and the incredible speed at which things are changing around us. Caring for the health of our employees, clients, and community continues to be our top priority. Like many of you, we’re staying on top of the latest developments and recommendations as announced by health and civic officials. Our thoughts are with all the individuals personally affected and the medical professionals who are dedicated to their care.
The Trinity Real Estate team is also monitoring the impacts the virus may have on our clients, their commercial real estate investments, and their associated communities. We continue to prioritize health and safety while supporting our team and clients with the tools to mitigate business disruption.
HOW WE ARE SUPPORTING THE TRINITY TEAM
At Trinity Real Estate we care deeply about our employees, clients, service provides and our community and take this Coronavirus very seriously. Therefore, we have asked our team at Trinity to take the following steps to keep our community safe.
A recent impactful stat was quoted to us that by reducing your contact with others by 30% can reduce the chance of transmission by 90%. This is a powerful statistic and is supportive of our approach and those of many in our community.
HOW WE ARE HELPING SUPPORT OUR CLIENTS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS
Many of our clients are asking what implications the Coronavirus can have on their commercial real estate assets. While the risks and long-term impacts are hard to quantify, and change day-to-day, provided below are our team’s collective thoughts. Please note we are actively monitoring the developments so that we can proactively mitigate any business interruption for the commercial assets we manage and advise on behalf of our clients.
Investment/Value Impact - It is very important to note that commercial real estate is not the stock market and its risk/return profile is very different. Therefore, the leasing and pricing fundamentals have not felt the impact of the market swings and we feel it is too early to gauge a material fallout.
Financing – With the central bank responding aggressively to the situation, we feel there will be a near and intermediate-term positive impact on the cost of financing for commercial assets. For quality assets with modest leverage, rates, terms, and spreads are very attractive. We are now actively reviewing all our
financing contracts to see if we can take advantage of this trend.
Trends/Leasing – In this new environment, we believe the trends that were already evident in the market will be accelerated.
Assets that have community retail (restaurants, services, etc.) will be dramatically impacted from a rapid downturn in customer traffic and sales. A proactive outreach to tenants is in order—underscoring a concerted effort to “work with” affected tenants during what is likely to be a temporary downturn. The alternative of reacting to a shuttered store or even proactive bankruptcy creates far fewer options that otherwise could be available.
Purchasing/Selling – In such uncertain times, we anticipate we will see a “flight to quality” for commercial real estate assets in terms of location and quality. We also believe that many sellers and buyers will take a “wait and see” attitude as they evaluate the risk and uncertainty in the
market. However, it is important to remember that before this unique development the demand for commercial assets was high within our region. To date, we are unconvinced this downturn will result in any meaningful increase in opportunities arising from significant duress.
We are in unprecedent times which calls for all of us to work at keeping our communities safe and prosperous. We are cautiously hopeful that the Coronavirus will be contained in the coming months and that in the second half of the year we will recover from its impact.
Please feel free to reach out to any member of the Trinity team with any questions and stay healthy!
Sincerely,
Richard Leider
Managing Partner & Founder Trinity Real Estate