During the IREI VIP conference, held in February of this year in Barcelona, the keynote speaker Chris Kutarna, the co-author of Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance, issued a challenge to the audience. Could it be, he said, that investors have an outdated map of the world they operate in, just as Christopher Columbus had the wrong map of the world when he discovered America in 1492? Shortly after the conference, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted our lives and the real estate markets. Since then, the question for every investor in real estate is more relevant than ever: Are we navigating with the right map?

In Kurtana’s view, finding blindspots in our maps is a three-step process. The first is to understand the true competitive advantage of your business. Is it rooted in the value proposition, the value chain, or the resources you control? The second is to search for what has been left in the margins in your current business — “