Mortgage expert: Look to unsexy cities for retail growth
Retailers and developers looking for potential expansion spots in the coming year should bypass Gotham and head to Grand Rapids.
That’s the prescription of mortgage note buyer Abby Shemesh, who spots hot locales and neighborhoods by the number of mortgage applications filed by individuals there. “If you see a lot of loan applications from people and not investors, you can be sure you’re going to have steady growth in that area,” says the CEO of San Francisco-based Amerinote Exchange. “Grand Rapids is a great example. There’s a lot of job growth there.”
Shemesh says retailers and shopping center developers need to divert their attention away from “sexy” cities like New York, San Francisco, and Austin and seek out towns like Omaha and Ann Arbor that new millennial home buyers are making sexy.
“More millennials will purchase homes in 2017, and they’re going to be leaving populated urban areas and moving to less populated urban areas where they can find jobs,” Shemesh said. Once there, he maintained, they will begin creating or demanding the citified food, beverage, and retail amenities they’ve become used to.
Demand for such services will also increase in the South and Southwest as Baby Boomers continue their migration to warmer climes. “I’m betting on the Carolinas for growth, towns like Charlotte and Charleston,” Shemesh said.
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