Video Recap of Bisnow's Orange County Multifamily Summit

Allen Matkins attorney Matthew Fogtmoderated the event's Special Look at Single-Family Development, which is sizzling in SoCal again—with a few complications, such as higher prices for land and labor shortages. Five Point Communities CEO Emile Haddad says he expects land values to increase rapidly in the near future. Also, getting new residential product out of the ground will be simply harder than it used to be. One problem is finding people who understand the complex process of land entitlement. Most of the people in the field were obliged to retire or find other livelihoods due to the recession.

Shea Homes division president Bob Yoder says the main worry about interest rates right now is about how fast they might go up—a quick rise would be damaging to the residential market. If rates went up to 6% in too short a time, that would be too much too fast, though at the moment rates seem stable. For now, demand is rising fast enough to meet supply, and Bob also predicts that home prices in OC could rise between 5% to 7% in the next two years.

Resmark Cos CFO Jeffrey Hermann says that sales for its communities are up for the year, but they took a dip in May and June. The rise in interest rates is partly to blame for the downtick, coming as it did on the heels of price increases for the company's product, as demand rose earlier this year. Apartment properties are trading at 4% caps, which makes them hard to convert them to condos. Even so, Jeffrey says that Resmark is fielding calls from condo converters. "I don't think anybody can convert a building today, but that time could come," he explains.

SunCal Cos EVP Randy Teteak says that live-work is actually a small percentage of the housing market. Buyers still want single-family housing, and they're still willing to commute to get to work. That's what counts as affordable housing in California, he notes. Randy adds that he's bullish on Northern California—as well as Washington, DC—not only because those regions are creating jobs, because they also have high barriers to entry. Once you're in, the deals are going to be sweeter. "We like markets where the impediment to development is high," he says.