CFO Intelligence Magazine – Spring/Summer 2024
Jeffrey J. Smith
Deloitte National Real Estate Leader
The commercial real estate industry (CRE) continues to face challenges in 2024, according to a Deloitte study. Amid expected declining revenues, real estate CFOs will have to engage in a balancing act as they attempt to reduce expenditures, even as they continue to embrace technology and invest in sustainable properties, according to Jeffrey J. Smith, Deloitte’s National Real Estate Leader.
As they consider new opportunities, real estate CFOs will need to address a variety of challenges, he says — from traditional ones, like the shifting financial environment to emerging issues like the industry’s approach to generational diversity, next-generation technologies, talent processes, and culture.
“There is such a high bar for real estate CFOs right now, and we know they can’t do everything they would like in this environment,” Smith tells CFO Intelligence. “But as a start, they need to diligently look at everything, and make those hard decisions, including how to meet their talent and other needs in a cost-effective manner, through outsourcing non-core processes and innovating core processes, where appropriate.”
Real estate CFOs are dealing “with what appears will be an extended period of elevated interest rates and higher cost of capital compared to the past decade, at the same time that capital availability is constrained,” he cautions. “Traditional bank lending through senior loans have long been a cornerstone of commercial real estate capital, but we’ve seen that when banks constrain — for example, following the 2008 to 2010 financial crisis — alternative financing methods, like mezzanine lending and insurance companies, emerge to fill the gaps. We anticipate that the use of other financing sources, including more joint ventures between private equity firms and real estate operators, will continue to grow.”