American Residential Properties Finding Success after IPO

Laurie Hawkes, president, COO and co-founder of American Residential Properties (NYSE: ARPI), joined REIT.com for a video interview at in Chicago at REITWeek 2013: NAREIT’s Investor Forum.

American Residential Properties acquires, owns and manages single-family homes as rental properties. Hawkes discussed the timing of her company’s initial public offering (IPO), as well as the market response.

“We were very pleased with the timing, especially given the current market conditions,” she said. “The timing went well; it was a shortened road show because we had enough interest to move in price.”

The company also held a follow-on offering in December that raised $148 million . In January American Residential executed on a debt facility with an initial tranche of$150 million.

Hawkes talked about what increased market competition means for her company.

“It’s a huge opportunity,” she said. “There is some increasing competition. There are markets such as Phoenix where house prices have gone up. We consider that great, considering that’s about 41 percent of our portfolio. What sets us apart is we are internally managed. We’re the only publicly traded internally managed REIT in this space. We also have an independent and highly accomplished and experienced board from the public sector.”

Hawkes described any potential concerns regarding the continued health and recovery of the housing sector.

“Interestingly enough, this is probably one of the few sectors that, whether the market is coming our way or not, we’re in a very good position,” she said. “If the economy continues to grow, house prices continue to appreciate. We believe the underlying net value will be reflected in the stock price. We still see very strong growth in terms of rental demand as more and more homes go through the foreclosure process, but also as we found some of our existing tenants are looking to re-up year after year. But, importantly, if the market doesn’t do well and the economy falters, it bodes very well for the rental business.”