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The annual Zelman Housing Summit is a small but elite conference for public and private house builders, mortgageers, investors and financial analysts, which are operated by one of the best-known building owner analysts Ivy Zelman. When the conference started 18 years ago, it mainly concentrated on living space. But now the talks have expanded – and this year's conference focused particularly on apartment buildings, GSEs, work and country.
Four years ago, Zelman's company was taken over by Walker & Dunlop, a company for commercial real estate financing and advice. It is a TOP GSE (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) Memory aid. CNBC sat down for a podcast with Willy Walker, his CEO.
In the following you will find some highlights from our discussion and from the broader conference:
Interest rates
A large part of the conversation at Zelman surrounded the interest rates because the 10-year return sank again on Thursday when the conference began. Walker said he was surprised where the interest rates are now and do not expect them to stay there.
“If you had told me three weeks ago that today we would have one of 10 years in the 10th year today, I would not have taken this bet,” he told CNBC. “The prices are much lower today than I thought that they would be.”
But then he noticed that when they returned to 1980 and watch the nine Fed-rated cutting periods over this period of 45, cut long-term bold returns in a recession. Outside of a recession, there was no influence on the long -term interest rates.
“As much as I expect that we see at least a 25 -basis cut, and then probably another point of 25 basis points, even if you take 50 basis points at the short end of the curve, I do not expect that it will affect the long end of the curve,” said Walker.
Fannie and freddie
For builders and apartment developers, the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical, and the uncertainty about what the Trump government has to do with them was a hot topic at Zelman.
Walker noted that commercial properties suffered in the past three years due to higher interest rates, but the multi -family had an advantage. If banks or CMBS issuers may not have made any lending, Fannie and Freddie were always on the market to deliver liquidity.
Now, the GSES Conservator, the FHFA director Bill Pulte, and the finance minister Scott Bessent said that there would be measures for the private team and then the public markets. Pult recently announced CNBC that the two would stay in the state conservatory, and he expects to sell about 5% of them to public markets.
The chairman and CEO of Walker & Dunlop, Willy Walker,
CNBC
Walker said he had many concerns about the condition for Fannie and Freddie, especially in view of the recent reports about an argument between the desk and improper, which became almost physical. He compared the situation with the flexible coworking company Wework a few years ago, from which he said she had no strong board to lead it.
“I am a listed company. I have a very strict board that has independent directors,” said Walker. “There is nothing independent in the way Fannie and Freddie are now managed from the point of view of the board.”
And as for the Dustup between the desk and better, Walker said: “The question of who takes the lead? Who has the pen who says that this is the action plan for Fannie and Freddie?”
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country
Also to the concerns that were raised around the Zelman Conference Halls: land.
“We have no apartment crisis, we have a country crisis,” said Adrian Foley, CEO of Brookfield Residential, Land developer and house builder in one of the conference boards.
The builders say for both individual and apartment buildings that they need more land claims and hope that the Trump administration will make this easier by opening more federal state and facilitating the restrictions on zoning.
“I love the equivalent of a chips act for living,” said Foley in a CNBC interview.
Work
Doug Yearley, CEO of Toll Brothers, said, however, that there is not enough workers to build on it.
Smaller builders have announced that they have lost their work due to the fear of ice attacks on construction sites. At the Zelman conference, a lot was talked about the training of more people to get into the business
The large public builders consistently say that they have no major problems with ice attacks on their construction sites, but they complain about the lack of work as a whole.
“We need a healthy immigration policy,” said Yearley in a body. “You go to our home gears, and that's it [like] The United Nations. “