What’s In Store? with Karly and Chris (Vegas Edition)

Guest: Karly Iacono
Topics: ICSC Las Vegas, online retailers

Transcript:

Chris Ressa 0:00
This is retail retold the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. I’m your host, Chris ReSSA. And I invite you to join my conversation with some of the retail industry’s biggest influencers. This podcast is brought to you by DLC management.

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Ressa 1:09
Welcome to retail retold everyone. I am excited to share another unique episode with you. Today’s episode is recording of what’s in store. A live show with Carly Iacono and AI that takes place once a month on LinkedIn live. In these live shows, we discuss the latest news in retail and real estate. Our most recent show was focused on our top five predictions for ICSE Las Vegas 2022. Now that the event is over, do you think our 22 predictions were right? Let us know. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

Karly Iacono 1:42
Hello, everybody. Welcome to What’s in store with Carly and Chris where we talk about fascinating Tresa the CEO of DLC. Hello Chris, how are you today?

Ressa 1:54
I’m good. How are you? Good. I’m getting ready for Vegas.

Iacono 1:58
Get ready for Vegas. I am leaving tomorrow because I am a complete overachiever. I like to be there for a full week. Wow. Tomorrow morning.

Ressa 2:07
So what are you doing tomorrow?

Iacono 2:10
Tomorrow I am getting ready for a trip in Zion with clients hiking. So we have a very intense hike that starts at 6:30am on Friday. And so excited about that part. All day Friday, and we’re gonna do a second hike on Saturday so I can barely walk when you see me on Sunday onward. That’s why

Ressa 2:30
Wow, that is. That’s pretty crazy. How long is this hike?

Iacono 2:37
Nine miles. I think 910 Something like that. There’s some waterfalls mixed in. So I’m excited. It’s gonna be good.

Ressa 2:45
Where are you staying? Are you sleeping like in a tent?

Iacono 2:48
No, no, I have done that. But not this trip. glamping. We are not glamping there’s about 15 of us. So we were staying at a hotel somewhere in Xi’an. Okay, I’ll give you a full review after

Ressa 3:00
I am. I’ve never been to Yellowstone nice. And I wanted to my kids are getting at the age where like next summer I think it would actually be really cool. I want to go and there’s there’s some really cool types of accommodations that you can stay on. That doesn’t have to be a tent. But I did find something that is I’m curious as to if you would do it, which is luxury TPS. Oh,

Iacono 3:35
I definitely do it.

Ressa 3:36
You do it. Okay. He’s

Iacono 3:39
very adventurous. That just sounds unique. It’s very hard to find unique things. So

Ressa 3:44
pretty unique. So I’m looking into it luxury teepees

Iacono 3:47
was your wife on board and the kids.

Ressa 3:51
The kids are on board. My wife’s pretty, you know, go with the flow. But I think it’s it’s a little unique luxury tepees. She would do it. It’s unique.

Iacono 4:05
So we are heading as you all have heard to Vegas with 18,000 of our closest friends. At some point in the next few days. Everyone will be descending on Vegas for ICSC and we are least I am extremely excited to be in person again, connecting with everybody. The buzz has been tremendous. December was a great show. This one is twice the number of attendees. So it will be a lot of information. A lot of connections, a lot of good networking.

Ressa 4:37
Yeah. What do you think? I’m curious. What do you think? You were there? I was there in December. This happens quick. We’re going back right? It we’re going we’re going back. What do you what do you think about you were in December and now you’re there. You’re going back again in May. How do you think about that?

Iacono 4:59
I have different meetings set up than I had in December. Okay, so it’s all what you make of it. Even if you have meetings every 30 minutes, which is what I typically do. It’s still only what 1015 20 meetings a day 18,000 people there, so you can’t even possibly scratch the surface. I mean, we could do this conference every week, and I would still be able to meet with different people lose my mind flying to Vegas that often. But I think the opportunity is there, a change of venue would have been maybe a little more interesting, but it’s what you make of it.

Ressa 5:34
Your whole world would be prepping for Vegas, basically doing any other work other than prepping for Vegas. So anything like

Iacono 5:41
in packing shoes, lots of shoes.

Ressa 5:45
I did here just for word. I don’t know if anyone checked. But for US east coasters. There are some triple digit temperature days.

Iacono 5:56
101 102 I saw. Yeah. Sorry, heat, though. So it doesn’t count.

Ressa 6:02
I know. It’s always it’s always interesting, right? Like, how do you dress when it’s super hot outside, but the convention is freezing.

Iacono 6:09
Right? Right. No good answer to that answer. That’s my bringing two suitcases. Awesome. So we have aside from sharing our wonderful travel plans with all of you loyal listeners, we have some great content. Today, we are going to share our top five predictions for the ICSC conference. So these are five themes, topics that we think will be at the top of everyone’s mind and the focus of conversation. We can do a recap after but we think this these five things will be sort of the driving force for the conference. Are you ready to dive in?

Ressa 6:54
I am I just want to say there’s been a there’s a bunch of comments where people are saying See you in Vegas. So Gina, Jeanne, Tom will see everybody and I like the Vegas shoes comment there. So yes, topic one.

Iacono 7:11
Prediction one, retailer appetite for new stores is growing exponentially as the cost of online delivery becomes untenable.

Ressa 7:25
Go, I’ll go. Okay. So I think one, we saw in 2021, that retailers opened more stores than they closed. And then the the the interesting thing about just the retail real estate sector is that nuclear construction is really challenging. And for the last 15 years, we haven’t had a ton of new construction. You’re not seeing a ton of new Walmart anchored super centers or target super centers. And that what that’s done is that shrinks supply at the same time. We are repurposing, obsolete functionally obsolete retail into other uses, again, compressing supply and driving force of retailers wanting to be profitable. We now have online, coming to the forefront that it’s it’s really tough to make a profit online. And so retail sales have been good. There have been some numbers that were for some disappointing over the last couple of days. But when you take a widespread over the last year, retail sales have been really strong retail, physical retail growth, outpacing online growth, the cost of online untenable for most retailers. And we’re seeing it all the other landlords are seeing it. Retail appetite for stores will be voracious in Vegas. And I think that’s good for the industry.

Iacono 9:02
Tremendous for the industry. Now, do you think part of the problem is just the cost of returns? Or do you think it still goes back to what you and I have talked about for two years now? Which is the customer acquisition costs online? Or is it both?

Ressa 9:18
I think it’s both right. So there’s millions of online retailers. Getting visibility is tough. That cost of customer acquisition is risen through the roof. On a $50 item, they’re gonna lose like $30 on a return $33 on a return something like that. And then

on just shipping direct, you know, the whole last mile cost if they just ship it direct to the consumer. And what if they give free shipping which is what the consumer demands? And not only the consumer demand it most consumers? That’s what they can afford. They can’t afford worth more than more shipping? Like, I can’t, most consumers can’t pay $7 on this purchase, go to a different retailer, online pay $8 for shipping on this, then they go to the expensive one, like some fancy furniture and pay $200 on this. You know, the I would love I haven’t seen, I would love a stat to see what the average consumer spends on shipping in the year, I think it would be daunting. And if you put that back into consumers pockets, which is what physical stores do, the purchasing power of the consumer would be even stronger than it already is.

Iacono 10:37
So we’ve had some retailers announced that they’re going to start charging for return Zara was the big one this week, right made great headlines, Zara is charging for online returns, and how do we think this will affect their business? They’re not the only ones. But it certainly made a splashy headline this week. What do you what do you think? Well, I dove into it a little more. And they’re charging $1.95 for the return. So from my perspective, there’s a psychology element that I may not buy an item I’m not sure about. If I have to pay returns, no matter the amount, it’s really not even $1 or $2. Really, it’s not I don’t know, if I can return this, I’m going to be penalized if I don’t like it. So I’m not going to buy it. But then if you look at it the other way, what does it cost you to drive to a store Park what how much time go in find the czar in a mall? It’s more than $1.95. But I think still, the rationality is not really where decisions are made. I think it’s the psychology of I want free shipping both ways, or I’m not going to try the product. And I think it will end up hurting their sales more than it will help the bottom line. It’s my prediction. What do you think?

Ressa 11:51
I think so. One of the things that the DTC brands talk about a lot is this thing called lifetime value. You can’t LTV they don’t talk about customer acquisition costs without the lifetime value. And, and one of the things you see is they tried to negate the customer acquisition cost with the profitability of that consumer over the life of that that person is a consumer with them. So what I think the returns do is it really hurts lifetime value. Because if my experience is negative on the return, it’s not necessarily about that purchase. To me, it’s about the next 15 purchases that they make over the next 36 months. That I think is it’s really impacted. I don’t know, if you’re gonna see a direct correlate on that item, or the opportunity cost rises, have them missing that sale. But I think you now start to ingrain like, in the consumers brain, that the there’s a cost to doing business with them over the, you know, that life of that consumer. So to me, that’s a challenge to charge for returns, but I give them a lot of credit. Because at the end of the debt, right, because, by the way, that dollar that’s not covering their full cost, right. Right there. I’m sure. Right. So I but they’re trying to do what smart business people do and profit. And it’s not a returns are brutal. So I give them a lot of credit for being first to do that. It’s like, you know, we’ve all heard the story of Nordstrom, back in the early 90s, where someone returned a set of tires because Nordstrom had this customer service where they’ll accept any return. And Nordstrom didn’t even sell tires. That’s a that’s a legendary story. That’s business books. But I think in today’s competitive landscape, you know, that’s really tough. And I think what I do think is brand really matters. Right? If Apple did it, would people still buy iPhones? You know, but it’s

Iacono 14:24
also a higher value item that you know what you’re getting clothing I think is more difficult. Maybe a lot of try and return I don’t know the numbers, but I would assume not that many people return iPhones that they get email.

Ressa 14:38
So here’s the what I think the punchline to that is like to me the headline isn’t about the return to me the headline is that the cost to serve the Last Mile End to End is no longer only going to be borne by the retailer,

the consumer is going to have to pay for convenience. The not prepared to pay for convenience, then they’re not going to get it. That’s the punchline.

Iacono 15:14
tough pill to swallow? I think you’re, I think you’re right. So just to wrap up this point, because we have four more, so to make sure we get to them, we predict or we think a lot of new retailers will be at ICSC opening new stores, existing retailers will be more focused on bricks and mortar than they ever have been primarily due to profitability. And, frankly, because it works as a business model. Perfect. All right, let’s move on to number two. And that is interest rates, inflation, and CPI, which I feel like is all I talk about every single day for the last month. Big, big focus right now. We’re seeing questions on cap rates, we’re seeing questions on where the market ends and how this affects investment volume. And it’s not a direct correlation. But we are predicting, of course, additional fed right rate hikes through the end of the year. And we are starting to see from an investment sales perspective, impact to velocity on higher value properties that are typically financed not to say the markets dead, but there has been some pressure because of the sort of imbalance between interest rates and cap rates right now. What is your take on inflation and interest rates? And what do you think the buzz will be at the conference?

Ressa 16:34
I think, our predictions, this is a layup. If you go to the ICSC, and you spend a couple of days there, you will undoubtedly have a conversation about inflation, interest rates or CPI, it will be impossible not to have a conversation about that. So our prediction is going to be right here. People won’t stop talking about these three things. I think I think it’s posing a challenge, but creating opportunity, you know, makes it hard to financially engineer buying deals, and you have to buy deals based on fundamentals of real estate and not, you know, creating financial arbitrage. And so, you know, the industry was built on that. It grew that more investment came because there’s some financial arbitrage at times. But that won’t be the driver for at some period of time for deals unless you just find some unbelievable opportunity which can happen. But the fundamentals of real estate are going to be what drives the investment in real estate, not financial arbitrage.

Iacono 17:49
That’s a great way to put it, it really is synced. And you’re exactly right. In my opinion, yeah, real estate fundamentals are still strong, there’s a ton of demand, there’s a lot of capital still waiting to be placed. So we’re predicting a very strong 2022 nationally from an investment, sales volume. And interest rates are something that we’re dealing with, but it’s not going to by any stretch, kill the market, because the fundamentals are so good. Very cool. All right, on to number

Ressa 18:20
two. But real quick, no, you don’t think you don’t think there’s any decline coming in investment.

Iacono 18:26
I think it’s going to be acid type and price point specific. We have a lot of cash buyers on the sub $5 million deals, those have been very active, they’re often all cashed in 31 exchanges. And I really think we see a lot of impact there. Again, it’s going to be the very low cap rate, long term deals that are typically finance that are going to be a little more of a struggle. So maybe your property that’s a four cap, when interest rates are five or five to five, you either need to find a buyer that’s willing to accept very low leverage, or that unicorn all cash exchange buyer at $40 million, who’s willing to just sit and take their 4%, or there’s going to be some pricing correction. So there are certain deals that will need to be re evaluated. But I think overall velocity is still strong in the market.

Ressa 19:16
But how will the inventory be because all these people who bought for caps aren’t gonna be able to sell?

Iacono 19:23
There’ll be a bit of a whole period, I think, absolutely, like real estate cycles always have seven to 10 year typical cycles. So yes, if you bought a year ago at a four cap and you’re trying to sell now at a three five cap rate, it’s probably not going to happen. So I would encourage any investor to look at their exit strategy and their whole period when they’re trying to buy now, and if they’re looking to sell, there’s a lot of reasons people sell, maybe it’s other opportunity. Maybe it’s lifestyle partnership disputes, maybe they’re able to increase the rent so the cap rate is less of an impact. So maybe they’re selling at a higher cap rate. but because their net operating income went out there up, they’re still coming out fundamentals of real estate right there. Right? So there’s not one clear answer that because interest rates are rising, everyone’s gonna hold not at all. But it’s very property specific.

Ressa 20:16
At a minimum, what we do know is that people won’t stop talking about this in Vegas.

Iacono 20:22
And outside of Vegas, just all the time, this is all we’re talking about is inflation, right? No, it’s a big one. It is a big one. All right, let’s move on to number three. And this is something we’ve been talking about for a year, but it’s just continuing to intensify. And that is rising construction costs, and retail rents. And we group these together, because they actually are very much inter related. Now, you deal with us on the ownership side a lot. How are you seeing construction costs? And how is this affecting your overall view of of your real estate strategy this year?

Ressa 21:00
Well, construction costs have been rising. I do think, you know, my team’s telling me, they think, you know, in the next 12 months, it’ll start to maybe even sooner start to curtail. But given our number one trend, right, we have supply, constrained with increased demand. And then we have a rising construction costs market, if rents don’t rise, stores won’t open and stores are going to open and therefore, rents are starting to rise, we saw real earnings in q1 and rents were rising. And we’re seeing it you know, there’s a lot of market share to be had. And one of the things I talk about a lot is pre pandemic retail, there was a washout happening, one of the reasons that the one of the reasons that the the pandemic didn’t play out from a retail perspective, like some pundits thought is because the retail industry took a lot of its medicine, before the pandemic, there was a ton of washing out of retailers pre pandemic, and it accelerated the ones that didn’t, you know, weren’t relevant, didn’t have good business operational model, or were to over levered. And then when we, you know, start to come out into, you know, have the shelter in place, the retailers that were left had such strong foundations, they have such cash, strong cash positions, they have to put that to work, they have to get a return on that investment. And one of the easiest, and most proven ways from the do that is to open stores. So we that demand with all the supply, construction, rising construction costs, rents are rising. And this will be a prediction that you’re going to see oh EMS with higher than yesterday rents. And you’re going to see, you know, new tenants opening stores at higher rents, which is just the total opposite of what people thought in May of 2020.

Iacono 23:37
We put out a retail research report recently that showed that retail rents were up nationally, 2.2% year over year, and I’m sure in some markets, it’s much higher than that. But that is the most significant increase since 2017, in retail rents. So I think that 1718 is right when the storyline retails dead, started to come out. Right. And Ron started to be sort of pushed down, we had some calling, as you would say, of brands, and now we’re seeing the reverse. So the data is backing that up. And then with the construction costs, we’re having those same conversations with our developer clients. If cap rates are ticking up on some product, and your construction costs are higher, how do you make these projects pencil? What At what point does it become not worth building? Whatever property it is, you’re talking about that drugstore, $1 tree, whatever it is, right? When does it not make sense? And the way they’re getting around less is asking for tenants for more rent. And the tenants they like the location because there’s limited supply in the market are paying it. So I really have seen a shift for the sort of the control of the site being back to the landlord used to be the tenant saying No, no, no, we might go here, we might go there, whoever gives us the best deal, and now it’s a landlord going, maybe we’ll sign this lease with you. Or maybe we’ll keep shopping for higher rent in two months. You know, take it now, or you might not have the site that you want. So that that’s been a big reversal in the last few years. And ensure it’s going to be a balance, though, as construction costs continue to climb, hopefully they level out. And as cap rates start to move a little bit. So

Ressa 25:29
I will give one tidbit. So there’s a couple of retailers who see rents rising. And they’ve taken a little interesting approach, which is they have a ton of cash on the balance sheet. What are they going to do with that? What’s like the most productive thing? So they’ve come to us and said, hey, we’ll do a completely as is no TI, like, throw me the keys. I don’t care. We’re conditioned spaces in. But for that, here’s what the rent is. Interesting, and which is a total shift from like, 2010 to 2020, where there’s one in landlords capital to, to, to get the stores open. Now, that’s not at scale. But it had surprised me and they, the conversation went like this, here’s what the rent market rent is. This is what we’ll take it as is if we want a turnkey if you want to turnkey for us no problem. Here’s what we can pay in rent. And it’s been interesting, because, you know, some of these public national retailers are so big, their cost of capital is cheaper than many landlords, especially the smaller landlord, that that as is no ti starts to be the more impactful deal. So that that would be the opposite. So what I would say is, deal structure will be creative because of rising construction costs. No doubt, we will see that at the show.

Iacono 27:06
And that scenario that you just mentioned, I think is actually great news for landlords because it allows smaller landlords to get into the business, right? It allows them to own one or two smaller retail properties without having such a heavy cash outlay necessary to attract the good tenants. Totally. That’s, that’s interesting, very positive. Yeah. And that kind of goes into our fourth prediction, which is somewhat related to the first that we’re expecting many new faces at ICSC this year. So we talked about the focus on bricks and mortar, but that kind of ties into the existing brands and retailers that we all know and mostly love. Now, we’re also expecting new faces, small business, new concepts, new entertainment, new med tail, everything you can think of seems to be rolling into retail in some way. So what do you think are some of the new ideas that you’re excited about, or omni channel or online only brands that we’re going to see at the show that we’ve never seen any examples?

Ressa 28:12
Of? Yeah, so I think you’re gonna see, you know, there’s, I would call three categories, you’re gonna see specialty retail, you’re going to see service, and that could be medical, beauty, any of that. And you’re going to see food and beverage. So the great resignation a lot of people. The bigger ism is happening. A lot of people became entrepreneurs. I think a lot of them started digitally native brands, a lot of them are opening restaurants, bottom start service. And then you have some who have been legacy digitally native brands that are deciding we need a physical footprint now. So there’s going to be new space, the new new faces at the show who we we haven’t seen before. Some people are still learning about it, you know, in if you weren’t in Vegas in December and DoorDash. We’ve done some deals with DoorDash. They opened up new stores, they’ll be at the show in Vegas. So you’ll see the micro fulfillment guys there who are not legacy ICSC attendees. You’ll see there’s a million new beauty and med tail concepts, that concepts that’s a big one. There’s new vet groups who are going to be in Vegas that you know, it’s an industry you always ask what’s the next triple net lease product line? Right? Is it car washes? What is it? It could be vets there is no real outside of what’s in Banfield or within Petsmart or Petco. There’s no like single tenant nationally branded vet. It’s a vocalized business, I think you’re gonna see that. I think so especially retail food and beverage, a million food and beverage groups. I am, I am, I am doing a podcast episode at the show with Cracker Barrel, who has a new concept that they’re putting out. And I think you’re gonna see a lot of new faces.

Iacono 30:24
Do you think the higher rents in the labor shortage will pose a problem for these smaller new business concepts? We’re not talking about Cracker Barrels, new concepts are already established, but these Mom and Pop new

Ressa 30:40
if they’re at the ICSC, they are they have strong business plan they’re financially backed. And I don’t think that’s the issue with them in general. In general, if you’d asked me what were the biggest themes that I saw in Vegas, December, it was, listen, there’s laborers are real challenges, supply chains, brutal construction costs are through the roof, but we want to make deals. So I think those will be you know, we didn’t highlight those three things there’ll be that was a bonus, like those three will probably still be talked about labor is, you know, Labor’s a challenge. You know, some of the wages that some of the retailers are paying is, you know, they’ve been forced to raise prices, it’s like, really amazing what you can earn in some of these, you know, in some of these roles that you couldn’t earn yesterday, I think it’s, you know, great for employees. But it’s definitely obviously a pinch on, you know, store performance, and we’ll be talking about it.

Iacono 31:45
One more element to the puzzle. So we have one last prediction. And that is everyone will be talking about the inflated housing market? And if maybe not, if how we would predict that will impact retail real estate. So there’s two pieces to that there’s one the house valuation and to the population migration to different elements. So you had found some great research on this very topic. So I will let you leave with that.

Ressa 32:20
Yeah, so the research I found is old. It’s from the early 2000s. But it was done at University of Pennsylvania, Warren did a research that essentially when housing prices in a trade area, for every 3%, housing prices rise and the trade area, retail sales in that trade area moved about 1%. So it’s no surprise then, given the record housing growth, we had, why we had such a record retail sales growth. And as you know, as the housing, what I’m not sure on is as the if the inverse is also true, as the housing market cools, if it cools, will that happen? And I believe will they will retail sales decline? I do think there is something to the crazy migration we had, because one of the things that and it was everywhere, right? It wasn’t just in Florida and Texas, it was, you know, New York City to northern New Jersey, where we live and to some other places, just like that everywhere. But I’m, I’m like stuck millions and millions of people locked in it like, you know, sub 3% mortgage rates. Now, if you get a mortgage and perfect credit, you’re like five and a quarter. So I think it’s tough for that person to move. I think, person to move, are we going to see the same migration? I think migration trends, probably cool. I don’t know how that person is going to move. Unless, unless that is offset by wage increases, right? Or the or they’re just where there’s non budgetary reasons that they’re moving, which obviously is the case. But I think that crazy migration is probably going to cool. What does that do to the housing market? I don’t know if that I don’t think that changes, like the couple who’s in a house and they want to move 20 minutes away, and they’re going to move like because for whatever reasons. But I think this whole notion that you know, the cost of living here is higher, and so we’re moving. I don’t know, that is that it’s going to be tough if you locked in even the cost of living. I don’t know if it’s going to be higher on a relative basis, but on an actual basis if my mortgage rate is three, and now my mortgage rate is 575. That Delta might be enough where my cost of living is actually less in this traditionally higher cost living market.

Iacono 34:58
So if you think we had recently put out research at CBRE of the top markets for investment volume for the last four quarters. And New York was number one, followed by LA, which was a switch from last quarter, four quarters rolling. So when you see data like that, right, it’s not all driven by population migration. But if the maximum amount of attention and investment dollars is going to core cities like New York, and LA, kind of makes me feel like everyone is not staying in the Carolinas and Florida year round, right, that concept, maybe they’re not moving back full time, but people are betting on these major cities long term. So I think there is a correlation to population with investment dollars. I don’t know exactly what the tie is. But I definitely think that they’re related. And then how that impacts retail sales, you would naturally think the more investment, more businesses that open the higher retail sales.

Ressa 36:02
Well, the I think the thing that’s probably missing from so the mortgage rate isn’t just financial, right? There’s this like, emotional piece to like, you know, I, I invested in residential rental properties. And in some of the markets, the lenders that would lend in the markets I was buying, and the rates were tough. But I was buying some lower priced homes. So like, the difference between like, an eight and a 6% mortgage was like $30 a month in some of these places. And so it was inconsequential to the deal. But emotionally, people struggle with going from a six to an eight. And there’s that the other piece to it, though, on migration, which I don’t know, it’ll be interesting how it plays out with the cities, is, you know, and I’m talking about on book because we own in suburban America, but you know, distributed work, hybrid work, work from anywhere that’s here to stay. And that’s a cost savings for people. And, you know, if the commute, they have personal time back, they can get things done. Like that’s not leaving you. And so that’s going to play into this whole migratory trends that we’re seeing, no doubt.

Iacono 37:36
And I think one point of clarification, our data that I referenced was the metropolitan area. So it’s my understanding that that for New York, for example, is not just Manhattan, that likely includes the suburbs and the commuter suburbs, that feed into the city. So I think you’re exactly right, the work from home, the balance of having the backyard, all these things that everyone has grown to love and appreciate, it’s likely here to stay. But they’re not showing investment dollars going to completely obscure towns where there’s not a lot of population, just because they happen to be, you know, in the south, right, right, these cities still have their, their lore and their velocity to them.

Ressa 38:23
So somebody has made a comment on two things just that the higher interest rates should lead to less residential buyers, and therefore less residential construction, which should ease commercial construction costs.

And this person also hopes that with less capital to buyers in residential, that will also just lead to less

residential construction generally. So good comments. Yeah, it’s his LinkedIn user. So I don’t know who said it. But it was interesting, for sure.

Iacono 39:10
Thank you to whoever that was. Yeah. Right. I think we would all like to see construction costs go down, maybe not at the expense of other development. But yeah, it’s brutal right now. So we hope you’re right.

Ressa 39:24
So let’s sum it up. Carly, what are our five predictions?

Iacono 39:27
All right. Number one retailer appetite for new stores is going to be off the charts. existing stores are refocusing on bricks and mortar omni channel is definitely looking at physical locations. Number two, interest rates inflation and CPI will be one of the most talked about topics at the show. Number three rising construction costs and retail rents and how those interplay and what we do about them and how we make deals pencil and how retailers afford to open new stores creative deal structuring you mentioned there as well which I love number that was three number four e commerce brands are looking to open new stores and we have new faces at the show mental entertainment all different types of uses coming to ICSC to merge with retail. And number five the population migration housing shifts in the market and what that means for retail sales. That’s it.

Ressa 40:31
Well, listen everyone thank you for joining and looking forward to seeing everyone in Vegas.

Iacono 40:36
Have a great trip if you’re going message Chris and I if you’d like to meet I know schedules aren’t insane at this point. But we’re happy to connect to provide value however weekend. Thanks for watching what’s in store. Hope to see you all really soon. Have a great day everyone.

Ressa 40:51
Bye bye. Thank you for listening to retail retold. If you want to share a story about a retail real estate deal that you were a part of on our show. Please reach out to us at retail retold at DLC mgmt.com This show highlights the stories behind the deals from all perspectives. So it doesn’t matter if you are a retailer, broker, entrepreneur, architect or an attorney. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to retail retold so you don’t miss out on next Thursday’s episode