Multifamily Market Experts Share Insights at Colliers’ Tampa Executive Exchange Event

Tampa, FL, Oct. 1, 2025 – Over 100 industry executives attended Colliers Florida’s “Navigating the New Multifamily Cycle” Executive Exchange event on Sept. 25 at the Centre Club in Tampa. The morning program exceeded capacity and featured two diverse panels of multifamily market experts sharing valuable insights and the latest trends in this commercial real estate sector in Tampa Bay.

The program kicked off with a welcome from Matt Siegel, Colliers’ executive managing director and brokerage market leader for West & Central Florida, followed by a rousing speech from former Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn, who highlighted Tampa’s growth over recent decades and the city’s potential for an even brighter future.

“Tampa will be – south of Atlanta – the economic engine that drives the Southeast United States,” Buckhorn said. “We, as a community, are in a place where we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what we’re going to become. This is a community that is poised for greatness.”

Colliers’ Casey Babb, CCIM, executive vice president and team lead for the Colliers Florida Multifamily Team, moderated the first panel, focused on multifamily capital markets; while Colliers’ Mark Eilers, executive vice president, Tampa Bay land services, led the panel focused on multifamily development.

Capital markets panelists included:

• Anthony Candela, Senior Vice President, Slate Asset Management
• Brendan Orient, Managing Director of Acquisitions, Phoenix Capital Management
• Mark Stroud, Jr., President & CEO, Lindell Investments
• Chad Zirbel, Senior Investment Officer, Principal Global Investors

Topics covered in the capital markets panel ranged from macro-level economic factors to doing deals in a capital-constrained market to how Florida’s multifamily market is faring compared to the rest of the country.

When Babb asked the panel about how recent macro-level factors, such as tariff policy changes, are affecting investment decisions today, Orient and Zirbel shared similar answers.

“For us, it’s been about getting back to the basics of really putting an emphasis on quality real estate and focusing on the microtrends in the markets,” Orient said. “If you drill down to the property level and submarket level, there are still some very good spots for investing.”

Currently, many of the Florida markets are recovering from a historic supply wave that has led to nearly three straight years of negative rent growth and higher-than-average concession activity. Babb asked panelists how the influx of supply in recent years is impacting investment decisions.

“The west coast of Florida is a sea of supply – we need to get some of that absorption through the system and see that supply pipeline taper off,” Stroud said. “Until some of that stabilizes, it’s going to be really hard to make sense of writing LP equity checks.”

Panelists agreed they are seeing distressed multifamily assets in the market.

“We’re specifically searching for that [distressed] right now, but it’s tough,” said Candela, who’s firm just acquired a 1,600-unit Sunbelt portfolio for $230 million. “What we’re looking for are deals that were bought at the peak, have some sort of value decline, but the equity is still in the money and they control the transaction.”

According to a recent Colliers Florida Multifamily Market Report, in Florida in Q4 2021, 227 multifamily properties were sold - but by Q4 2024, that number had fallen to just 48. When asked how Florida’s multifamily market is holding up compared to other areas of the country, most panelists cited it among the top strongest in the U.S.

“It is population driven,” Zirbel said. “Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, they’re going to have population growth and will continue to have population growth - so those markets will get corrected and they’ll still be attractive markets to lend in long-term.”

Development panelists included:

• Bobby Anderson, Managing Director, Alliance Residential
• Steven Epps, Managing Director, Trammell Crow Residential
• Stephen Gerhard, COO, 2nd Wave Development
• David King, Managing Director, Greystar

Topics covered in the development panel included individual panelists’ projects, thoughts on the Live Local Act and addressing regional challenges, such as lack of affordable housing.

When asked how Trammel Crow Residential is approaching deal-making in a challenging environment, Epps said, “Part of it is raising new capital sources, fostering existing relationships and constantly working the process. Capital markets have changed since 2022 and 2023. We’re saying, don’t look at the multifamily market today, let’s look at what it can be, given that the fundamentals look good. We’re getting creative in our process of getting capital on deals.”

Greystar is the largest third-party manager in the country and a highly active developer in he area. When Eilers asked Greystar’s King what his organization’s strategy is for Tampa, King said, “We’ve retreated back to more infill locations in core markets, finding where the population growth and jobs are…And we’ve gotten pretty creative – our scale and ability to work across different asset classes have allowed us to go look at chunkier opportunities.”

Eilers stated that Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa are running out of land and asked panelists how we solve the housing crisis, with this in mind.

“I think the biggest challenges we face are entitlements, and going against NIMBYism and the vocal minority’s influence on our Tampa City Council,” Gerhard said. “In order to accomplish our vision for long term growth in Tampa, we need to increase density in certain areas to take us to a higher quality of life and fix that affordability issue, which I think is a barrier to workforce relocations into Tampa.”

Florida's Live Local Act is a comprehensive housing reform law that addresses the state's housing affordability crisis by providing incentives, tax breaks, funding and zoning flexibility for affordable and workforce housing projects. Eilers asked the panel for their thoughts on the law.

“We are utilizing Live Local on three development sites now, on the zoning side,” Alliance’s Anderson said. “And really how I use it is in locations where there is quite a bit of NIMBYism against a project, and it [the Live Local Act] gives us a tool to come in to do an infill location, because the more infill you go, the harder it is to get a rezoning done, in a lot of ways. We’ve been successful with that – we’ve been able to get capital on some of these deals where we have Live Local.”

Each Colliers Executive Exchange thought-leadership session brings together a curated group of professionals to explore key topics, market shifts and emerging opportunities across various commercial real estate sectors. For more information or to inquire about collaboration opportunities, please reach out to Aleine Lagasca.

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