Q&A with the CIO:
Published Jul 16, 2026
Important Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Bill Grubbs, CIO, and reflect his personal perspective as of the date of publication, informed by professional experience, ongoing market observations, and qualitative assessments developed over time. This commentary is not intended to be, and should not be construed as, investment advice, a forecast, or a prediction of future performance. The observations shared do not rely on or present specific statistical analyses. Actual market conditions, outcomes, and performance may differ materially. Past experience is not indicative of future results.
Realberry is primarily known for its developments and redevelopments, including adaptive reuse properties like Denver Union Station and Dairy Block. Now, the company is pursuing acquisitions as an investment strategy. What’s behind the move?
Within real estate — putting aside public REIT stocks that are generally correlated with the public equities market — there’s a progression of risk that corresponds to different styles of investing. There are also different time horizons for the realization of different investments.
New development typically requires a long-term time horizon, 10 or more years. It also carries a generally higher degree of risk, because it's hard to precisely time the market and sync supply hitting the market with the exact moment demand is there. That's the risk. New development offers tremendous opportunity to create something special and valuable, but it comes with more risk on a relative basis, particularly up front.
Existing properties that we may acquire are in different places on the risk spectrum and may be able to generate returns more quickly and likely provide higher probability outcomes.
By being in the market for acquisitions all the time — while at the same time the company is selectively planning new developments that may take longer to realize — Realberry is able to make investments that provide a broader set of opportunities that can deliver ongoing returns on a risk-adjusted basis. That’s the reason to have an acquisitions program at the same time we’re an active developer, it makes us better at both.
We sat down with Realberry’s CIO, Bill Grubbs, to dig into acquisitions strategy and what sets Realberry apart from other sponsors within this discipline.
BILL: So, let me answer that question first in terms of the risk spectrum.
I know there are resources for investors on the website that explain different real estate investment types and strategies, including value-add, core, and core-plus investments, so I won’t get into that here. Except to say that they generally represent different levels of risk on the spectrum and require varying levels of investment to realize their potential returns.
Core investments are generally considered the most conservative strategy - income-oriented like bonds, but with the potential for growth over time. They typically use lower leverage, which may provide more visibility and less volatility of returns than other strategies. Core-plus investments have some level of current income in place but need some reinvestment and/or leasing to realize the potential for above-average returns, with a bit more risk, including moderate leverage. Value-add investments carry a higher level of risk but typically offer the potential for higher returns through significant renovations or new leasing strategies.
In all three cases, you have existing assets with known values and some degree of cash flow. You don't have development risk like a ground-up project, so you can get your money to work quickly, and you have more opportunities throughout the real estate cycle that arguably make sense to pencil and produce returns on a risk-adjusted basis.
BILL: Our strategy is to make core-plus and value-add investments. These are existing assets with the potential to generate above-average returns resulting from additional capital investment and execution of a clear up-front business plan.
BILL: We’re focused on for-rent residential, which includes multifamily apartments and build-to-rent properties.
We’re also opportunistically focused on industrial and distribution assets, and parts of the retail market.
From a geography standpoint, we’re not going to try to be all things to all people and go to New York, Los Angeles, or Nashville, for example. We’re going to stick to a geographic footprint that we know, that we can execute in, and where we can add value.
What is that? It's the Mountain West states. We're based in Colorado, so that’s included as well as Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona. We’ll also go places where we have history and there are common links, such as the Austin to San Antonio corridor in Texas.
What do all those areas have in common from a strategy standpoint? They all have quality of life. They have strong demographics and incomes, good business climates and growth, and they're basically places where people with good jobs and incomes want to live.
By the way, that's a differentiator for us. You don't see that footprint every day. You see a lot of southeast- and west coast-focused firms, but that’s not us.
I should back up. All of this fits under a framework I'll call “live, consume, innovate.” We're focusing on three areas: where people live, with for-rent residential and build-to-rent multifamily; where people consume, with retail and mixed-use; and industrial/distribution, because it serves consumer spending; and all in markets where innovation and growth is above average.
Remember Realberry’s mantra, which is to create places people love. It’s long been our goal with new development, and it applies equally on the acquisitions side as we invest in existing properties and improve them. These places can make a difference in people’s daily lives. They enjoy and want to be there (in other words demand) and this impacts how much rent tenants are willing to pay, and how durable the assets are long term.
BILL: With multifamily, our focus is primarily suburban, with a secondary but active focus on select urban assets. Bottom line: we look for assets we can buy at a favorable basis below replacement cost - a tried-and-true strategy - and where we can apply our experience in managing and renovating assets to drive growth in NOI, which in turn drives value.
Multifamily also benefits from a deep, liquid capital market, making these assets generally easier to sell than other property types when the need arises. During the GFC, for example, multifamily was one of the few property types that remained reliably financeable, largely because agency lenders continued to support the market. It has also historically been one of the more liquid property types to trade through cycles.
With industrial, the characteristics are very similar to multifamily, except they’re business tenants largely serving the consumer. We’re going to focus on the smaller-sized segment of industrial that’s more infill - not million-square-foot warehouses and distribution centers near the airport – generally, 250,000 square feet and below and properties that are multi-tenant, often multi-building in concentration. What does that get you? It gets you more granular income streams, less risk on any individual tenant, and less competition from new construction because they’re typically infill. It’s generally a really solid segment for consistent income and income growth over time.
With retail, in recent years the deck has been cleared of many obsolete assets, and retailers have realized they have to be brick-and-mortar, as well as online. Retail today is solid, because very little has been built lately and the consumer is spending. Our retail strategy is what I call a barbell approach. On one end, it’s where people need to shop: grocery-anchored, neighborhood-serving, the dry cleaner, the hardware store. At the other end, it's where people want to shop, experience life, go out to dinner. It’s often outdoor, often with amenities like greenways, certainly easy places to walk. Some retail assets are a combination of the two.
Realberry is developing new properties in this vein; the same approach can apply on the acquisitions side. So that's our retail strategy: places where you need to shop, where you want to shop, with good demographics and good trade areas.
BILL: Great question. Fundamentally, across the board, the answer is BELOW REPLACEMENT COST. On the multifamily side, there's a range. We can buy smaller assets that larger institutions wouldn’t, they can’t afford to because they need larger-scale properties to support their infrastructure.
The advantage for us with smaller assets is there’s less competition, so generally better pricing. On the multifamily side, I would say the primary range is generally from about $40 million to $80 million for us. But that could dip to $30 million on the bottom and go over $100 million at the top (with select opportunities higher) to secure a 300 +/- -unit rental property, for example.
The same ranges generally apply on the industrial and retail sides. Below $50 million means we’re below the radar of institutions, which has some benefit, and over $80 or $90 million means we see an opportunity worth evaluating to take advantage of the scale of a larger property.
Further, there are specific locational and physical attributes that are important in our decisions. For example, in for rent residential – only assets built since the year 2000, or on industrial, functional attributes like the “clear heights” of the interior space.
BILL: Our Managing Director of Acquisitions Tim Slater is on everyday point. Both Tim and I together have significant acquisitions experience both in our geography and nationally and we have been building the Realberry acquisitions team and strategy. We have a very deep and strong foundation in this discipline across the firm.
A key note: buying the asset is just the beginning. You need to strongly execute with strong asset management – we are very solid in that area, and those folks are fully involved in the acquisition process from the start.
BILL: We are in the flow on acquisitions. We have a great pipeline. But we’re selective. The discipline is in the pass - the quick no. For every one deal we bid on, I expect we will review 50 deals and really dig into seven or eight.
BILL: It takes a lot of effort to identify and evaluate investment opportunities. You need to know your markets. You need to know that this street corner is better than that street corner. There's no substitute for people who are on the ground and understand their markets. AI can help but cannot duplicate that, in my opinion. AI doesn't always pick up on ground-level context — like a convenience store on the corner with a loitering or safety issue nearby — the kind of detail that would make you think twice before buying there.
What makes us successful in winning bids and closing deals? Simple answer: focus and reliability. I can't tell you there's a magic equation to that. The magic is reputation, which means you have integrity. You have relationships. People trust you because you do what you say you’re going to do. When you bid on a property, you're serious about it. You engage. You're prepared. If you capture the deal, you do what you say you’re going to do. You're a reliable closer who people know they can count on.
BILL: Underwriting is a combination of fact-gathering, forecasting, and underlying assumptions, all of which help determine not just whether we want to purchase an asset in a particular location, and obviously how much we’re willing to pay for it.
A prudent forecast is well supported by facts including comparable rents in the market, comparable sales in the market, and projected operating expenses that can be compared to other properties. Well-researched and solid capital expense projections. All of those data points are fundamental to the forecast, and we exercise prudence in gathering facts and making projections.
The second part of the equation is judgment. “What’s the probability of achieving that forecast?” we ask ourselves. There’s no machine that tells you what’s going to happen. You have to exercise judgment based on experience
We also carefully consider our capital markets assumptions. In other words, what we expect to sell the property for in five to seven years. It's critical that this forecast, particularly the exit cap rate, is well-supported and realistic, since we use it to back into how much it makes sense to pay for the asset today.
BILL: It really is asset by asset based on the particular strategy and objectives for the particular investor or group of investors. So, if it’s a value-add investment, typically the business plan to achieve our target returns is generally three to five years: to renovate the property, turn over the tenants, whatever might be necessary. At which time, we could sell the asset and move on.
Alternatively, we could say we want to acquire the property, improve it, and then hold it for income; in other words, turn a value-add investment into a core investment. So there are different ways to skin the cat based on the investors and the strategy.
Liquidity is also a critical question. We have to give people an idea up front what the timeframe is to provide clear expectations. You can’t hold investors hostage. Rest assured, our determinations about hold-times will be made based on a process that represents all investors involved.
BILL: I will address this in the context of acquisitions.
For value-add and core-plus properties we acquire, reasonable leverage would generally be somewhere between 50% to 60%+/-. With a value-add acquisition, where we can create value relatively rapidly to get from here to there, we could probably capitalize it with 60+/-% debt, 40% equity.
For more of a core-plus acquisition, where value may be added more slowly and existing leases are slower to turnover so it takes longer to get from here to there, it would probably be 50% to 55% debt. We’d likely borrow less to correspond to the lower overall risk objective.
Leverage is not something to fool with. It's not a free lunch. Prudently and thoughtfully leveraging an asset based on its characteristics and business plan — and the hold period that we just discussed — is all very important to match up.
What we seek for each asset is a capital structure that provides for some level of flexibility so if we run into challenges in the market, which happens, we can manage through them without capital calls or other measures that could have been avoided.
We are closely focused on how we capitalize each particular deal with the financing that fits the business plan and provides the flexibility we need for our exit. The cost of that debt has to be accretive to the return on the property. That’s the simplest way to look at it.
BILL: We are the JV partner — the general partner operator. That’s part of our advantage as an integrated operating company, which saves investors a layer of fees, and also makes us a stronger asset manager.
BILL: The short answer is yes, in terms of executing the business plan.
We're the asset manager. We're the investment manager. In some cases and asset classes, we’re the property manager. As an integrated operating company, we have capabilities built out in-house, which helps assure consistency and quality of operations at the highest level.
For some asset classes, like multifamily and build-to-rent, we use third-party property management for different reasons. You need high-quality leasing people in the market for the asset type.
BILL: Again, it’s a fundamental question, similar to what you’d hear in the stock market. However, we’re in a private asset class where it's not liquid at the drop of a hat like public securities. I can't push a button and sell a property. So there is an extra level of care, thought, and judgment that I believe is needed in that regard.
It's hard to time the market, but if you have an experienced set of investment managers, which we have at this firm, you should always be in the market and open to opportunities… gauging when to push and when to pull back.
There's no perfect time to buy or sell - but there are better times to lean in or lean out. That means focusing on property types with characteristics that drive more consistent demand.
The alternative is to sit out challenging times and wait. But doing so means you can miss opportunities. This is a key judgement required of your real estate manager.
Urban Institute (2011): Rental Market Stresses: Impacts of the Great Recession on Affordability and Multifamily Lending
CBRE (2026): Retail Rent Growth Supported by Drop in New Supply
Stay in the Know
Be the first to hear about new investment opportunities, market changes, and exciting real estate developments around the country.
