Bellwether

To continue our employee spotlight series, we’d like to highlight Kenzie Curtis, an associate on our debt asset management team in Salt Lake City. 

Applications for the Bellwether Women’s Mentorship Program for the 2024-2025 school year are now open. The program aims to foster growth and provide guidance for undergraduate women who are interested in pursuing careers in real estate. Those interested can apply on LinkedIn or our website by September 16th. Please reach out to Caitlin Schlesinger, Julia Bonacini or Kenzie Curtis with any questions. https://lnkd.in/ewghzAuu

We are excited to welcome our summer 2024 intern class to the Bellwether team! Evan Kupferberg Makenna Murphy Benjamin Farrell Julia Kowalski Jeweliana Morales Curtis Chasman Kristof Josef Corbell Gavin Hatch Preston Edgin Rylen P. Michael Fraraccio

* The 25-year-old+ population, which is typically the starting age of new household formation, grew by 13.5%. Meanwhile, housing stock, which includes multi-family and single-family units, only grew 10.8%. * The addition of new adults to the U.S. economy could put greater pressure on a housing stock that Fannie Mae already estimated is undersupplied by 3.8 million units in 2019. * While there were 1.4 million housing starts at the end of 2023, this does not account for obsolete homes being removed from the housing stock and will do little to alleviate this U.S. housing shortage. Additionally, signs point to fewer housing starts across the U.S. over the next two years, as an increase in construction costs have limited developer and homebuilder activity. * In the medium term, the dearth of new housing supply and the presence of strong demand is likely to maintain pressure on affordability for both renters and buyers. For more Bellwether Charts for Thought, click here: https://lnkd.in/gXBsshS5

Philanthropy is a core commitment of our culture at Bellwether. For our LA office's annual Philanthropy Day, the team volunteered at MudTown Farms, an urban farm and community wellness center in Watts. The team spent the day working around the farm, pulling weeds, mulching, turning a live compost pile and organizing a shoe drive. We are grateful for the opportunity to support our local community. 

Hotter-than-expected inflation was a trend throughout 1Q 2024, as CPI’s shelter cost remains elevated. Shelter cost is the largest CPI category, making up over 36% of the calculation weighting. The main component, owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence, makes up roughly 74% of shelter cost or just over a quarter of the CPI calculation weighting. In this Chart for Thought, we analyze the shelter cost methodology, why it’s deeply flawed, and why it has major implications for global investors, central banks, and citizens. Please click here to read our latest Chart for Thought titled, “Shelter CPI Analyzed”: https://lnkd.in/gEr7UyKg

We are excited to welcome our new managing director Michael Nagin to the Bellwether team. Michael will be responsible for overseeing debt asset management across multiple client portfolios. Michael has 25+ years as both a lender and equity investor across all major asset classes and risk profiles. Over this period, he has closed over $5bn of real estate investments, with responsibilities ranging from analyzing, sourcing and structuring transactions to asset management.  

Check out Bellwether's own Will Feltus speak about the multifamily market on Avenue5 Residential's podcast.

The Bellwether Salt Lake City Women's Mentorship program recently hosted an event at The Gateway in downtown SLC. The mentors and mentees had the opportunity to tour The Gateway’s retail and life science spaces, as well as the upcoming Autograph Collection Marriott hotel, an adaptive reuse of the 1908 Union Pacific railroad passenger station.

Bellwether is excited to attend the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG)'s #DealMax2024 conference in Las Vegas. Please reach out to connect on M&A deal-making or meet us at the Operating Partners Forum.