Conservative pace wins the race
Slow and steady may not be the best way to stay ahead of the pack in good times, but a disciplined approach and conservative pace is winning the race for Mid-America Apartment Communities in today's distressed economy.
"Simple and boring is the new exciting," BMO Capital Markets analyst Rich Anderson wrote in a June report on the middle-market REIT that online investment blog REIT Wrecks pegs as this year's high achiever among its peers.
Memphis-based Mid-America's Sunbelt markets and mostly suburban garden-style assets are not especially exciting, nor is the company's low debt level, but today, when a lot of companies are looking at red ink, "boring is definitely the new black," the blog writer declared.
With the country's financial deficit spiraling out of control and its real estate markets reeling from the economic collapse, a story that is easy to understand is a welcome relief, and Mid-America's is such a tale.
"There are two things we do really well as a company. We know how to underwrite investment opportunities in a disciplined manner and identify value that may not be realized in a given property. Secondly, we know how to operate and execute property management very well onsite," Mid-America CEO Eric Bolton said last month.
The REIT has grown at a measured clip, never straying far from the original company culture of its predecessor, The Cates Company, a property management firm founded by George Cates in 1977.
Cates' strategy was to
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
