Core’s Performance During Recession

Wally Smith:
Has CORE ever missed a distribution payment?

Jeff Montgomery:
We have not.

Wally Smith:
Okay. How did you do during the lockdowns? How was all that?

Jeff Montgomery:
So, I mentioned I started in 2012, so I’ve seen some of these movements, and it’s been an interesting roller-coaster. So pandemic period for multifamily initially was scary, going into it, going, “Are we doing full recession? Or what’s going to happen from the lockdowns?” Ultimately, multifamily proved to be extremely resilient, going through this.

Wally Smith:
Is it agency debt that you have?

Jeff Montgomery:
We do agency.

Wally Smith:
Okay.

Jeff Montgomery:
Yeah. A lot of agency, some bank. But we’re targeting agency on most.

Wally Smith:
Sure.

Jeff Montgomery:
But yeah, multifamily was very resilient, going through the slowing of the pandemic and the pandemic years. But then, given the properties that we selected coming out, we saw tremendous NOI growth from increased demand and kind of pent-up demand on the tenant side as well.

Wally Smith:
Mm-hmm. Before you got there, I mean with CORE, have they been in a position to be opportunistic as other companies? You said the first deals they started doing was 2016, so most of the trouble had been soaked up by then.

Jeff Montgomery:
Sure.

Wally Smith:
But is that part of their model?

Jeff Montgomery:
CORE, as a company, has been around over 17 years. They’ve gone through multiple cycles and through the GFC then, and through that, yes, have been able to find opportunistic opportunities. And given the long horizon of the company, long-term view of investments, there are legacy assets we still own that were acquired pre-GFC. So we were able to ride through the GFC recession, ride through the ups of that, and are still operating those and exceeding our expectations of what those would do.