Dear CREW San Diego Members,
It's hard to believe we are already halfway through the year. Time feels like it's flying by as our chapter has been focused on strategy and remains hard at work to provide more value to our members. This comes in the form of quality programming to help us all do more deals and position ourselves to understand what's going on in San Diego real estate. From fun social events providing opportunities to network and build business connections to our mentorship program, CREWMates, CREW San Diego keeps our mission, to elevate women, at the center of all we do.
We are proud to announce that our chapter currently has 260 members - the most we've ever had. This growth is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our committees and members, and we want to ensure we are growing in the right direction. Our efforts are now focused on recruiting more landlords, developers and brokers, as well as providing strong succession planning and building up our members to provide a pathway to board leadership.
Our chapter is excited to offer two scholarships for members to attend this year's CREW Network Convention in September along with our current Board of Directors. This is an amazing opportunity to network and learn from industry leaders from across the nation. We are also proud to share the progress of our chapter's non-profit, Building Futures Foundation (BFF). Last year, we successfully provided stipends to five CREW San Diego members and are now accepting applications for additional stipends this spring. As we move through the year, there are continuing market concerns and geopolitical uncertainty, San Diego remains a unique, resilient, well-positioned center of industry to pull through ahead of our West Coast neighbors. Our city is home to some of the best science institutions providing a strong talent base for life science companies. With the University of California, San Diego being one of the top biology universities, we have a dense talent pool for this growing asset class. San Diego also boasts the largest Defense/Military sector in the U.S. which fuels many opportunities for our community. Our innovation sector is thriving with venture capital funding to our region at an all-time high and expected to reach $5 Billion in 2024. Our city's strong hospitality and tourism industries, as well as our cross-border connection, adds to its appeal and economic stability. Of course, we have our challenges too, including increased competition for deals, high cost of construction and labor, inflation, and the high cost of housing that impacts companies wanting to remain here and new companies working to open offices in San Diego.
In terms of asset classes, we have seen industrial, residential and alternatives perform favorably due to our consumer-driven economy and increasing demand for last-mile services. On the residential side, we saw net inflow migration last year and we still have a wide affordability gap in housing. Alternatives such as life sciences, data centers, senior and student housing continue to experience growth and high demand.
We have also witnessed emerging asset classes like retail and hospitality continue to outperform because people want to visit San Diego and it remains expensive to build new hotels. Most investments in this sector are being spent on updating well-located properties. As for retail centers, they are being viewed as covered land plays for residential densification - it's a trend we expect to continue.
On the other hand, office assets are still facing challenges with many finance and insurance sector companies now operating mostly remote, and technology, law, and consulting companies adopting 3–4 day office strategies. This has resulted in downsizing and right-sizing on lease renewals. Additionally, we are starting to see lenders take back properties and seeing values fall short of loan balances in the sector. The next few years for this asset type are likely to remain challenging. But even with these challenges, our county's economy remains strong.
In these slower times, it is important to keep your connections strong and stay in touch with clients. Use this time to focus on your company's strategy and your personal growth. Thank you for your continued support and dedication to our organization. We are here to support and uplift each other. I encourage you to reach out to us with any feedback or suggestions. We hope you continue to attend our events and find the value of CREW.
Liz Doll
Alexandria Real Estate
2024 CREW San Diego
Chapter President
