Daniel B. Hurwitz
Analyst · Jason White with Green Street Advisors
Well, demographics are absolutely a part of the consideration. They're not independent of all the other factors including performance of the asset, tenant sales, population trends, things of that nature. But the demographics are a decent sanity check. The problem with the demographic reports that we see on a consistent basis is they take the ring approach not the market share, not the trade area approach. And when you look at centers that are typically our size, it's easy to draw a ring and say this is the trade area, but if you talk to the tenants and you ask them what their trade area is, it's extraordinarily different. No retailer just draws a circle. That's why while we provide a retailer with some demographic information, they typically ignore it. I mean, I could tell you, and I'm sure Paul will confirm, we were on the department store side of the business, it was very of developers to show us demographic reports and trade area reports, but we absolutely ignored them and did our own. Because the retailer knows the market better than anyone who's just drawing rings. So while demographics, I think, are interesting, and I think they're a good sanity check, they don't you a great story in a lot of cases. We can point to an awful lot of very, very, very good centers where tenants make a lot of money in a light demographic area, and we can also point you to a lot of terrible, terrible centers in very high demographic urban areas or suburban areas. So it really is on a case-by-case basis. In other asset classes, it's not the same. In multi-family and residential, even in office, it's very different. It's very different. Demographics tell a much clearer story. But we have so many diverse retailers who have so many proprietary trade areas and they know who the consumer is and how they reach their consumers. And that -- it's a nice sanity check, but it doesn't drive necessarily the decision because if it did that, you'd buy a lot of very, very bad assets in some high demographic areas. And a lot of people are doing that.