The first thing that springs to mind as I put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, is just how astonishingly quickly the year has flown by. In part, this is because it has been a busy year for ANREV, the Asian Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles. But it is undoubtedly also due to global geo­political events that have brought a whole new meaning to the word “entertaining”.

In my guest editorial in this publication last year, I remarked on the array of news being absorbed by the markets — some of it troubling — yet at that time markets were soldiering on. A year later, things seem not to have changed, in that much of the news remains troubling at times and, indeed, has … er … trumped what we saw in the early part of 2016.

Though geopolitical events seem to have been accompanied by a limited impact on volatility, plenty of concern remains about where we are in the real estate cycle in certain markets. A good deal of liquidity