Whether you’re an investor, investment manager, consultant or private wealth adviser, benchmarking your real estate portfolios has become increasingly important for most of you reading this column.

There is a reason investors and fund managers are increasingly shifting their capital and focus to alternative real estate assets; society is changing. Hybrid work is diminishing the need for offices, while an emphasis on clean energy is opening up all sorts of new real estate possibilities, and manufacturing, supply chains and the way consumers obtain goods are changing domestic real estate demand. This appetite for niche property segments is being matched by accessibility. Routes into alternatives are increasing, while the financial fundamentals of many non-mainstream real estate sectors enables them to deliver steady returns, while also having a positive social impact

Transactions in once-reliable sectors such as office have slowed to a crawl, faced with a structural shift in use, and many assets have not performed as predicted in a world of higher borrowing costs. So, investors are faced with a quandary: hold on to underwhelming fund positions or physical assets, with returns eaten away by rising interest rates, or sell when values, rents and deal flow are down.