For sellers of high-quality real estate assets in global cities, liquidity currently is likely to be of little concern, with market activity at present comparable to 2007 levels. Buyers who need to deploy capital, however, may disagree. With record-breaking investment volumes in the United States, and upward of US$1 trillion of commercial real estate transacted globally in 2015, foreign investors are becoming progressively more significant. In the December 2015 issue of Institutional Real Estate Europe, Institutional Real Estate, Inc’s David Schindler reflected on how investors are strategically increasing capital flows into commercial real estate assets across what he terms the “global village”.

Considering the volume of direct real estate transacted last year and the amount of capital being allocated internationally, institutional investors must somehow gauge the liquidity characteristics of markets when allocating real estate within their portfolios. The investing wo