As president and head of CA’s Latin American division, Tony DiBiase focuses on international investment and development opportunities.
Prior to joining CA, Tony served as chief operating officer at U.S. Equities Realty, a Chicago based real estate company also in Latin America. In real estate for over 25 years, Tony has spent over 15 years growing operating companies and working with large-scale real estate projects in international markets. His real estate experience includes commercial management and leasing, property and facility management, retail and mixed-use properties, student housing, receiverships, start-ups, and business unit sales.
In today’s episode, we dive into:
FROM THIS EPISODE:
ON US MARKET TRENDS
“The Sun Belt in general has been the focus of people moving in those states and cities and I think that will continue to happen especially within this economy where we’re finding we can work almost anywhere. They are going to choose small-town living and temperate weather”.
“This is why multi-family is the trend of the next foreseeable future. It’s primarily because of the younger generation who are valuing experience over ownership. The younger generation worldwide isn’t seeing the value in (homeownership). They would rather have a mobile lifestyle. They rather have an experience of living rather than an asset on their balance sheet.”
ON FACILITY MANAGEMENT
“Facility managers are the owners of the real estate but they are also the tenants of the real estate. They need real estate executives to make their space-efficient. They are not looking for a return on investment for space. What they want is an efficient use of the space.”
ON MARKET OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD
“We look at opportunities agnostic of the country. And what we find is Latin America has a massive need that’s not being met in student housing, industrial, and also in multi-family.”
“Real estate is a transferable skill and a transferable product. The United States may be ahead of the curve in a lot of these product types but the rest of the world wants and needs it also. The challenge is having the financial systems in place that can keep up with the evolution of real estate.”
ON RISK
“Here’s the reality - there’s risk everywhere. It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with it. And that’s something I would like to see our universities do a better job with because I don’t think we are well-educated on identifying risk and overcoming risk.”
“With student housing, you're underwriting the University, not the city. The difference is that without the University there is no secondary market. Whereas with multi-family, you’re underwriting the city or the geographic area and asking - does that area have growth? What type of growth? Are people moving to that area because jobs are prevalent or leaving because it’s a dying area?”
“I think the market is not never-ending. Already we see that there is some slow down in student housing because it’s starting to get built up to the demand that it has today. Moving forward I think universities have a really big and important struggle that they will have to get through over the next decade which is maintaining their costs and/or lowering their costs of education.”
Book mentioned in this episode: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie