Now that the memory of MIPIM 2016 is beginning to fade, it may be worthwhile trying to sum up the sentiment of the event and the differing views on the future of real estate finance that one heard up and down La Croissette.

There were certainly divergent views (depending largely on whether one is a natural optimist or pessimist and probably, in many cases, on whether one has a vested interest in talking prices up or down) but the main topic emerging in meetings and conversations in and out of the Palais des Festivals in mid-March was “is 2016 the year that the bubble will burst?”

The Financial Times defines a “bubble” as being “when the prices of securities or other assets rise so sharply and at such a sustained rate that they exceed valuations justified by fundamentals, making a sudden collapse likely.”

Glasses half full

Those investors with their champagne glasses half full pointed to the yields on commercial proper