As the country deals with high inflation in food, energy, and housing, many real estate investors are pivoting to keep up with changing market dynamics. Smart investors can thrive in challenging times, if they know where to look.Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. I recently interviewed John Chang on my other podcast, The Real Wealth Show. John is the National Director of Research at Marcus & Millichap, and he offered some very good insights that I wanted to summarize here on Real Estate News for Investors.Marcus & Millichap’s John ChangJust to give you some background on John, he leads a team of real estate research professionals and is responsible for the production of the firm’s vast array of commercial real estate publications, tools and services. Under his leadership, Marcus & Millichap has become a leading source of market analysis, insight and forecasting, and the firm’s research is regularly quoted throughout the industry and in mainstream business media. To summarize, John is well-respected in his field.During his recent interview, he explained how good investors had it last year, and what they will be up against this year. He says last year was off the charts for commercial real estate. Transaction volume was up about 30% higher than the previous peak, and the dollar volume was up 45%. He says there were more deals, and many of them were also bigger deals, which is why there was a surge in dollar volume. Changing Real Estate EnvironmentBut as prices and interest rates rise, what are we starting to see now? At the time of this podcast, the overnight lending rate was up 75 basis points. That’s triggering the beginning of a slowdown, but John says we haven’t really felt the impact yet, because many of the transactions that are closing today were locked in 30, 60, or 90 days ago. He doesn’t think we’ll see much of a change during the first half of 2022, and in the second half, he expects a little bit of a slowdown, but nothing dramatic.He says, even with a few more rate hikes, there won’t be a huge impact on most real estate investors., because there’s a lot of capital out there. After all, the Federal Reserve increasing the amount of that's circulating by nearly 50% in just two years time. This is unprecedented. As those dollars circulate, investors are looking for places to put that money as a hedge against this inflation. There are also tax benefits that investors will be trying to capitalize on. So he expects investors to keep moving forward with their plans, but hopefully with more caution.The “Value Add Mentality”John told us a little story about his Dad during the interview. He said that his Dad bought his first rental property in 1971. He took out a loan at 6.5% which is higher than what we are facing right now. John’s Dad still owns that property today, and John says the reason it has worked out so well is because of something called “value add.” His Dad continued to add value to that property so that the high interest rate didn’t matter that much. And over time, it’s been a worthwhile investment.John says that smart investors have a “value add mentality.” They will research and analyze a property, and figure out a way to improve it with better management or upgrades or conversions. This mentality is something that new investors may not have developed yet because it’s been so easy in recent years. Analysis hasn’t really been necessary.As John put it: “Investors have gotten lazy… because interest rates have been so low you can just buy into a deal and it cash flows right away. You don’t have to work as hard.” But he says that we are now coming to a time when “investors have to roll up their sleeves, understand the intrinsic value of the property… what they can do differently than the previous owner, and then buy those properties.”Sophisticated investors don’t see high interest rates as a game changer. Instead, they loo