Now Mr. Brazeau is also looking at a specific interest — Distressed real estate.
“The institutional or the safe money has been looking at distressed real estate for the last few years because we all thought that we were in a bubble, even pre- [pandemic].”
With the stay-at-home orders making it difficult for tenants to pay
rents, Lawrence sees that many commercial properties could fall
into distressed situations where the owners are unable to meet
their loan obligations.
In past cycles when that has happened, vulture investors made a
lot of money — usually buying the asset after it has been given
back to the bank. “Anyone acquiring assets back then would joke
if we bought $50 million [in assets], while we wish we had bought
$100 million. If you bought $100 million, you wish you had
bought $200 million. It was easy money."
For opportunistic investors it seems like there's little to lose — if
you buy something cheap enough, it shouldn't be hard to make a
few upgrades and sell it for a tidy profit.
Big money-backed groups or individuals were mobilizing for
distressed opportunities long before anyone knew what COVID-
19
We have an asset at a large financial institution that gives us a
weekly list of distressed properties Before anyone else