Institutional capital is timing the market trough in Manhattan real estate, locking out retail investors from bottom-priced assets. Individual players can't compete without massive war chests. The real opportunity now is buying notes or distressed assets directly from lenders before foreclosure, not through brokers.
So remember, guys, this is a valuation issue. It's not a cash issue. The institutional players, the, the big boys and gals, they're in this little place called Manhattan. The reality is they have plenty of cash and they're trying to time the trough. They're trying to time the bottom. They think that this is a shadow of like 2008. But if you are sitting on your couch right now with that bag of Doritos and you're thinking to yourself, I can raise some money and buy an asset, but I want to play at the bottom of the trough, you're competing against the guys that have hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy. It's no competition. The game is over before it even started. This is a lender-centric market. I'm not going to CoStar and I'm not calling my buddies at the brokerage shops to figure out what's available on market buys. That's not the game that's being played behind the scenes. The game that's being played behind the scenes are buying directly from lenders, pre-foreclosure, pre-foreclosure buys, either the sale of notes or the buying of actual assets before they get to foreclosure. That's the opportunity for people that are not in like Park Central in New York City, right? If you've got that type of cash, then forget about it. You're going to win the beauty contest. I'm going to be uglier than you all day, every day.
