A Few Bullish Signs for Multifamily Investing at the Start of 2024

After a tough period in multifamily syndication investing, we see a few bright green shoots as 2024 gets underway. Some very smart investors are gearing up for a buying spree, so maybe we should be, too?

• David Rubenstein, billionaire founder of Carlyle Group and author of a great book on How to Invest, made headlines this week for putting together a deal to buy the Baltimore Orioles. That's fun. But he also announced that he's working with a group called Declaration Partners to raise and deploy $400 million in multifamily real estate. David Rubenstein is surely among his generation's smartest investors.
• Tyler Henritze is not as well known but he too made a big splash this week. Henritze led Blackstone's real estate investing and now is raising and plans to deploy funding--as much as $1 billion--with a focus also on... you guessed it, multifamily housing in the Sunbelt region of the United States (along with Industrial and other asset classes, potentially). The Wall Street Journal reports that he's closed on $750 million and likely will close on the full $1 billion by the end of the second quarter. This is another example of "smart money" going into the sector.
• Ben Miller, CEO of Fundrise, also seems to be sending out the "Buy" signal for multifamily real estate. The web page for the Fundrise Flagship Fund now reads:

It's time to buy
Real estate values have been largely crushed by record-breaking interest rate hikes. For arguably the first time since 2008, even blue-chip real estate assets are available at a discount. That’s why the Fundrise Flagship Fund is expanding its $1.1B private real estate portfolio.

In recent podcasts and public discourse, these leading investors have all indicated one way or another that they see the tide as having turned--from an overpriced and hard to navigate market in multifamily investing to a time of opportunity. We are paying attention for sure.