March 17-18, 2025 | Grand Hyatt
Nashville, TNPreliminary Agenda Topics
Provisional Start & End Times:
March 16: Welcome networking reception at 6:00 PM
March 17: 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM
March 18: 8:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Full agenda coming soon...
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Crystal Balling the Future of BTR: Developer & Operator Perspectives
- How do you envisage BTR activity changing over the year, 3 years, 5 years?
- Rates are coming down: what does this mean for rental housing and homebuilding?
- Which new administration policies do you expect will impact homebuilding and rental housing most significantly?
- Are you actively pursuing deals, being highly selective and biding your time or planning exits?
- Has reasonably priced financing become more available?
- Availability and cost of labor and materials
- Where is institutional investor interest right now? What returns are they seeing and expecting?
- Which markets do you think will overperform/underperform in the coming 12-24 months?
- Where are your team focusing their efforts on cost control and operational efficiencies?
- What is your biggest challenge as a business leader today?
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Securing Capital for BTR Projects Today
- What are we seeing in terms of lending activity?
- Are lenders taking on new developer clients? Under what parameters?
- What main factors dictate funding availability and size?
- Completion guarantees, personal guarantees, interest accruals & LTC
- Do lenders require audited financials?
- How much collateral is needed?
- What does the overall governance structure look like today?
- Agency and bank lending parameters and requirements
- Is financing availability vastly different across product types?
- Forward contract sales and completion guarantees
- How do you see borrower and lender risk tolerance changing over the coming year?
- How are higher insurance and other costs impacting your underwriting
- Refinancing and workouts activity: what are the options?
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Breaking Down Supply & Demand Trends for Rental Housing
- Where is new supply coming online and in the pipeline?
- What is absorption like across different MSAs?
- Effects of housing prices, interest rates, cap rates, negative leverage and debt spreads
- Which markets are seeing the most demand for single family rental products? Which products are most desirable in these markets?
- How does leasing and absorption compare to traditional multifamily?
- What are rent growth expectations within the markets you operate? Communities vs. scattered site?
- Availability and cost of labor and materials
- Impacts of election results on the BTR supply chain and investment activity
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Making Deals Pencil in 2025
- Where do you see cap rates in 6 months? 1 year?
- How have exit strategies changed in the past 6 months? Are you extending hold times?
- How are you assessing and underwriting rent growth?
- Underwriting different markets and property types
- What does your underwriting tech stack look like?
- Tax and insurance considerations
- Who is buying today? How are you identifying buyers?
- What do valuations look like and how are they trending?
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Investment, Acquisition & Portfolio Management Strategies
- As higher rates become the norm, what performance are investors looking for in BTR?
- Return expectations and capital raising vs. other asset classes
- Who’s raising successfully? Who is providing it?
- How will deal structures change moving forward?
- What do you see in terms of a recovery for valuations?
- How are owners, investors and operators working together to refine their strategy at this time?
- Where will new opportunities first rear their heads?
- Any alterations to exit plans?
- Managing rising insurance costs
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BTR 101: Starting from the Ground Up
- Traditional SFR townhomes, horizontal apartments, attached, detached, duplex/triplex
- Purpose built communities vs. scattered lot homes
- Importance of amenities: how do they improve returns?
- Which concepts/product types are most attractive to investors? Which allow smaller investors to play in the space?
- How do capital providers view horizontal vs. traditional townhome
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BTR’s Role in Plugging the ‘Missing Middle’
- What is ‘Missing Middle’ Housing?
- How do the characteristics of these products lend themselves to the rental market?
- Who are the target tenants? What do they demand from their homes?
- Are investors attracted to these products?
- Management challenges
- Financing Missing Middle communities and portfolios
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Evaluating Strategies: Buying Stabilized, C/O, Using Fee Builders or Self-Performing Construction
- How do yields compare across the spectrum?
- How do you view lease up across the spectrum?
- How important is future rent growth in each of these strategies?
- What are the financing structures available based on the acquisition structure? Bridge or Agency?
- Are you seeing opportunities for forward purchasing in this market?
- What happens if things go wrong with the builder?
- If you purchase the land, how are you getting the development work done? Is there cost risk associated? How does that translate into yield requirements?
- How competitive is the land/finished lot market? Once you have lots, how are you getting the homes built?
- If you self perform, how do you account for the overhead of designing, estimating, purchasing and constructing without scale or relationships in the business? Is it harder than you expected? How much is your overhead per unit?
- If you use a fee builder, which structure makes the most sense to you: sell lots and buy back finished product at a fixed price; cost plus % or fee; short term Guaranteed Price; or Long term Guaranteed Price with an inflation adjustment mechanism?
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Buyers & Sellers Roundtable on Forward Purchase Agreements
- How are these transactions typically structured?
- How do these transactional agreements vary from other deal types?
- What provisions are typically included in the transfer agreement with regards to funding and development?
- What percentage of your transactional volume is forward purchase agreements?
- Obligation to complete vs. rights given to other 3rd parties and conditions of closing
- Essential insurance considerations
- Recourse available to insure the seller’s obligation to complete post-closing work
- Is the seller permitted to use deposits?
- Who provides warranties of condition?
- Title insurance complexities
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Homebuilder BTR/SFR Strategies for Accessing Capital Through Investment Partners
- What makes for a good BTR opportunity for an investor? What makes for a good BTR sales opportunity for a homebuilder?
- What strategies do you have as a homebuilder to bridge the current pricing gap between retail and BTR pricing?
- As an investor, has underwriting changed with the lack of rate cuts this year but possibility that they begin in the next 3-6 months?
- What is the preferred investment structure for investors – C/O sales, progress funding, hybrid debt equity etc? How do each of these structures effect your underwriting?
- What are the preferred sales structures for homebuilders?
- What are the best strategies for identifying investor pools of capital?
- What is the best way to engage homebuilders if you are interested in BTR opportunities?
- What characteristics make for a good equity partner as well as homebuilder partners?
- What type of BTR deals and markets are penciling in today’s market environment?
- Given more and more builders are creating BTR strategies, what is your prediction for how the relationship between homebuilders and investment partners will develop over time?
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The Evolution of BTR Homes within Master Planned Communities
- What trends are we seeing in terms of BTR developments within master planned communities?
- Performance of BTR products within master planned communities
- How do you go about the site selection process?
- Creating and integrating a neighborhood within an existing development
- Communicating and working with existing residents to mitigate for NIMBYism
- How do you approach home and neighborhood design?
- Property type and amenity diversification
- Do these homes attract a different type of renter?
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Manufactured Housing in BTR
- Latest innovations in new home construction processes
- New materials used in home construction
- What is the demand for offsite solutions given raw material price increase and volatility?
- How are builders and providers overcoming supply chain challenges with manufactured and modular homes?
- What are the cost benefits for the builder? How are these savings passed on to the consumer?
- What is the uptake of these new technologies? Are they scalable?
- How do these innovations lead to better quality and value for the customer?
- How are you utilizing AI in your processes?
- Which applications are you most excited about?
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Active Adult Spotlight
- What are the key factors driving demand from the 55+ group? How large is this cohort?
- How do their lifestyle preferences differ from other generations of renters?
- How are developers and property managers catering to these needs?
- Site selection: proximity to healthcare, transportation etc.
- What product types and design features are most popular with this group?
- Which amenities are essential vs. nice-to-have?
- How are you marketing to this group?
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Construction Loan Financing Update
- Update on new construction loan activity?
- What are terms like today? How are you underwriting deals?
- Who is actively borrowing?
- What is the outlook for these product types over the next couple of years?
- Lending on the entire project from land, through development and construction then the takeout
- Bank lending activity
- Completion guarantees, personal guarantees, interest accruals & LTC
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Bridge & Flexible Short Term Financing: What’s the Latest?
- What is demand like for flexible short term financing?
- Acquiring and stabilizing communities with bridge loans: how bespoke are these agreements?
- Evaluating the bridge to perm market, cash-outs and refis
- A&D loan market update: under what parameters are you taking on new borrowers?
- Term lengths and extension options
- Lease-up, value-add, lease trade-outs and other strategies: what are you comfortable with?
- Are ARM products increasing in demand?
- Update on DSCR financing activity
- Are credit standards changing?
- Short term construction lending
- How are you underwriting these deals today?
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Financing from the Owners’ Perspective
- Debt vs. equity: how are you balancing the capital stack today?
- How many lenders are you working with?
- Working with development partners who obtain construction financing
- What are you doing with landowners and builders to reduce your funding needs?
- Warehouse line vs takeout financing, bridge to perm
- Today’s ARM structures
- Local brokers, community and local bank: are they still playing?
- How much leverage are you comfortable with?
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Maximizing Insurance Coverage & Optimizing Budgets: Title, Landlord, Rent Protection & Compliance
- How are high rates impacting your location strategy?
- How can you stabilize or lower costs?
- What is available and how much does it cost?
- How much should you play with deductibles? How high should your deductibles be?
- Is there a cost savings for covering multiple properties?
- How quickly can I get a quote?
- What is driving higher rates in different locations? Which areas are becoming uninsurable?
- Property management best practices that can save on insurance costs
- Forward purchase BTR and insurance
- The latest Florida developments you need to know
- Customer-facing insurance projects: How much money can you make?
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Assessing the Homebuilding M&A Landscape
- In a period of economic uncertainty are larger builders looking for acquisition opportunities?
- Are private equity investors actively looking at builders?
- What sort of conversations are public and private builders having re M&A at the moment?
- Foreign investment? What are they looking for in terms of performance, ESG etc?
- Are there particular company types or regionals markets that are particularly well-placed for M&A today?
- Are larger builders looking to acquire construction companies, tech, supply etc. for vertical integration?
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Outlook for Institutional Investment in BTR
- Update on institutional investor appetite in SFR and BTR
- Are you actively investing in BTR at the moment? What types of deals are you targeting?
- Which market trends are you following most closely? Where do you see rents moving?
- Has the way you analyze risk changed significantly? How have your return expectations changed?
- Funds vs. deal-by-deal vs. JV partnerships: what structures make most sense today?
- Which strategies make most sense for a JV in this environment? What are you looking for from an operating partner?
- Which projects/product types/markets are most attractive? Master planned communities vs. scattered site portfolios?
- How have your exit strategies changed in the past year?
- Are you still seeing much foreign money entering the market? What are their pain points?
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Land Strategies: Sourcing, Financing & Acquiring Lots
- How do you see land prices trending in the next 6-12 months?
- How are you underwriting land deals today?
- Does your strategy vary by market? Are you targeting raw, entitled or finished lots?
- Which financing options are most attractive in this environment?
- How has your risk assessment model changed since the beginning of the pandemic?
- What are the main operational challenges you are facing?
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Land Banking Strategies: What’s New?
- What is the outlook for finished lots around the country? Are you seeing an impact on land banking activity?
- How are land banks typically being funded today? Does this differ by region?
- Considerations regarding financing and fee structuring
- Learning from past experiences – what has worked and what has been a bust?
- Do you have any risk management practices in place?
- Filling land banking arrangements with new vs. previously owned parcels
- What legal considerations have to be made?
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What are Property Managers Doing to Innovate for Renters Today?
- Purpose built communities vs. scattered lot homes
- How do services offered and capabilities vary between most in-house teams vs. large national or regional third party managers?
- Maintenance management
- Investment and implementation of technology and smart systems: who is responsible?
- Scaling and fragmentation portfolio: at which point does it make sense to choose a third party over in-house? Hiring teams in new markets?
- Owner/manager case studies: examples of when it made sense to manage in-house and when it made sense to use a third party
- Selecting a third party manager: what do owners look for?
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Leveraging AI Applications to Increase Operational Efficiency in SFR Homes
- What existing pain points and inefficient processes can be remedied by the appropriate use of AI?
- How quickly do you see AI being adopted to increase industry automation?
- Automating smart home technology
- How do you train your systems? Create your algorithms?
- Using AI to assess property values
- How can property management teams utilize AI?
- Where have you been finding Chat GPT effective?
- Cost and ROI, implementation, security and training
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Tools for Optimizing Operational Efficiency & Asset Management Best Practices
- What are you doing to maximize tenant retention?
- What kind of asset management best practices are you undertaking while the tenant is in place?
- What are you doing to minimize costs? Which part of the leasing and management cycle are you focusing on?
- Negotiating tenant rent and terms - what are the terms that potential tenants are having trouble with?
- How are you minimizing tenant turn time?
- Smart maintenance and other tools that increase NOI
- How do you analyze which products and services are essential and which make sense in terms of ROI?
- Purpose built communities vs. scattered lot homes
- What are you doing on the risk management side?
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Increasing NOI through Ancillary Services & Cost Control
- Optimizing current income streams and adding new income-generating products and services
- Which ancillary services and products are most important to today’s tenants?
- How does this vary by property type/geographic market?
- Tracking and adjusting resident fees
- Reducing costs to increase NOI: quick fixes vs. longer term, strategic investments
- Reducing tenant turnover, turnover time and associated costs
- How do you grow from 100s of homes to 1000s without sacrificing the tenant experience?
- Using rent collection services and optimizing insurance products
- Challenges and efficiencies in managing amenities and ancillary services
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Revenue Management & Data Utilization
- What are the benefits of a dedicated revenue management strategy?
- How do you allocate resources to analyzing and understanding customer behavior and market trends?
- Managing and analyzing data to better inform decision making at the executive level and at the property level
- Are you utilizing AI to do this?
- Using revenue management solutions to maximize rent value potential
- Reporting tools to ensure transparency between owners, operators and investors
- Which tools do you use to best maximize NOI in the long term?
- Sourcing the right data: which data points are of most use? Which are just background noise?
- How to ensure accuracy and validity of data?
- Implications of using the wrong data
- What kind of information should BTR owners be looking at before they build their next community?
- What are your smartest clients asking for?
- Increasing title & admin efficiencies
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Learn from the Pros: Marketing & Leasing BTR Properties
- Occupancy/vacancy rates across markets: a look at the numbers
- Strategies to make homes more attractive to renters
- Keys to a successful launch
- How large do you have to be to have a brand?
- Rebranding best practices
- Measuring new brand performance
- Challenges when branding scattered site housing
- Allocating marketing budget to different channels: what works best for different demographics?
- Using technology and AI to optimize the marketing process
- How can these directly increase NOI?
- How should you respond to negative social media?
- Reversing a bad reputation
- What should you do on a tenant-level?
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Tech Vendors Shark Tank
- How can operators determine if the technology they are using is right for their strategy?
- What should operators be asking their service providers in this environment where operational efficiency is more important than ever?
- What does the next wave of must-have products look like?
- Bespoke vs. off-the-shelf services: how to determine which is right for your business?
- Are operators focusing on tenant- or landlord-facing technologies when it comes to identifying areas to improve efficiency and cut costs?
- Which ancillary products have the most profit-making potential and are popular with tenants?
- Cost of installing, servicing and maintaining smart home technology for an existing vs. new home
- Comparing device installation, servicing and maintenance approaches
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Understanding the Changing Needs of Tenants Across Generations
- Implications of mortgage rates on tenant profile
- How will the for-sale market react and what does this mean for BTR?
- Which rental markets have been hit hardest? Where are renters moving to and from?
- How are you approaching the urgent need for affordable housing?
- Which amenities and services do you see prospective tenants valuing most in the coming months and years?
- How are you utilizing data to increase leasing and occupancy?
- How are you generating leads in today’s environment?
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How Has New Home Design & Amenities Evolved in the Past 5 Years?
- What are your most common demands from prospective residents today?
- How do preferences for various design features differ across generations?
- Which of these amenity/design demands work for different product types?
- Floorplan designs and lessons learned
- Working from home: office spaces/rooms and IoT
- Living Green: smart devices and solar power
- Parking, EV charging vs. public transport proximity
- Outdoor space
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Sourcing & Structuring Joint Venture Agreements
- Are there any new joint ventures in the BTR space in the past 6 months?
- Are there opportunities for targeting distress in the sector?
- How are you identifying a partner in this new economic environment?
- How are these JVs structured today?
- Risk management best practices and due diligence
- Where is equity coming from? What projects and markets are most attractive to sophisticated capital?
- Planning an exit: short vs. long term
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Implementing ESG Strategies into Your Business Model
- How can ESG investment create opportunities for low income and affordable housing?
- Company-level and industry-wide targets and challenges
- What needs to be done to set ESG data and reporting standards?
- Where do you start with making ESG improvements? How can this be done efficiently and in a cost-effective manner?
- Local community impact programs
- Rent to own structures