Ross Cooper: Yes. I don’t know that I would identify the last few weeks just any different than sort of the volatility that we’ve seen the first four months of the year. There was a lot of hope going into the year that there would be some more stability, and really we can live and there can be a market that’s efficient in a higher interest rate environment, but there just needs to be some stability there. So with the uncertainty, it just makes it very difficult for any investor that is looking for financing, because there is a lag time between when you shake hands on a deal and when you actually go and lock rate or close on that loan, and the buyer and the seller expectations oftentimes change accordingly. So the hope is that there’s a little bit more stability to that. And then on a go-forward basis, we can see the transactions start to increase over the back half of the year, and I think that that will happen. But there’s still just a lot of unknowns at the moment.
Operator: And our next question comes from Alexander Goldfarb of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Alexander Goldfarb: Hey, thank you. Just a quick follow-up on the heels of Linda Tsai’s question. Do you think that we’re being rolled into complacency on the strength of the retail market? The fact that Joann’s basically had no downtime Bed Bath was almost a non-issue. Just curious if you think that we’re being rolled into complacency or for the next few years, you see this low credit, high demand environment enduring. It’s certainly quite a contrast to what we’re used to pre-pandemic.
Conor Flynn: A lot of that, Alex, I think, ties back to supply and demand. I mean, if you look at the lack of new supply for the last decade plus, and then the evolution of the omni-channel approach by retailers and how important the last mile is with our store located close to where people live, work and play, I think that model has won out. You’ve seen an exit of a lot of pure play e-commerce players, especially in the grocery business. And you’ve seen a lot of the pure play e-commerce players, the larger ones lean into their stores now that they have to utilize them as distribution, fulfillment and in-store experience. So I think that combination is really what is leading to a resurgence of the importance of the brick-and-mortar world.
And the integration of the e-commerce platform has been a big boost. Whereas at one point it was David versus Goliath that it was going to be, one was going to win, one was going to lose, where now it’s obviously the combination is the winning model that everybody’s following. So all those ingredients, I think, lead to the environment that we’re in today. Load, I think, is not the right word. I think we’re in a situation where higher rates have impacted all of commercial real estate. And so I think when you get through this noise and stabilization period of where rates may settle out, there’s going to be, I think a differentiation in sectors of really who has pricing power, who’s able to outgrow interest expense. And I think there’s only going to be certain categories that are going to be able to do that.
And I think we’re in the right one.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Bujnicki for any closing remarks.
David Bujnicki: Just like to thank everybody for joining today’s call. We look forward to seeing a number of you at the upcoming NAREIT Conference in June. Please enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
