Following an aborted early morning hot air balloon ride (more on that later), Institutional Real Estate Europe’s editorial board gathered in Siena, Italy, on 25 and 26 September, to discuss all things real estate.

The representatives at this year’s meeting — made up of 13 investors, 13 investment managers and two consultants, who collectively control some €675 billion of real estate assets — tackled a variety of subjects including investment conditions, mega- trends and de-risking.

The inevitable question over where Europe currently sits in the cycle produced much speculative talk, with a number of board members offering up some possible indicators of an imminent turn. One of these signals is evidence of deals being justified on the strength of their FX hedging capabilities. Another is equity markets concluding that the ECB’s current actions are sustainable.

Certain fault lines within the real economy were also picked as likely recession cat