Office investors need to invest in flexibility, not tech

Owners of office asset should be focusing on offering tenants highly flexible properties, rather than investing in a myriad of new technologies.

Speaking in Amsterdam at Institutional Real Estate, Inc.’s 2019 Visions, Insights & Perspectives (VIP) Europe conference on Feb. 21, Norbert Bol, the CIO at Sweco Capital Consultants, said technology is moving at such a pace that it makes more sense to provide tenants with flexible buildings that can adapt quickly to new technological advances.

“It is good to monitor what is happening in fintech and proptech, but the office market is still a B2B one,” Bol told delegates at the event. “If you are an investor today, I would say invest in flexibility, because if you think innovation will grow exponentially, then you need do less instead of more, and keep assets as traditional as possible so that they can be flexible.”

He added that due to human behavior and regulation, there was also a distinct possi