Looking down from the window in the press centre at the start of this year’s EXPO REAL, I couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the sheer number of people that were streaming in from every corner of Munich to enter the fair. 44,536 people from 72 countries swarmed into the vast Neue Messe München exhibition centre (many of them seemingly unaffected by the previous night’s beer drinking at the close of Oktoberfest) where 2,095 exhibitors awaited them, ready to make deals, build new connections and have a catch-up over some bratwurst and sauerkraut. The majority of them came in with a spring in their step as well, with the EXPO REAL Barometer of Opinion survey finding that 65.9 percent of real estate professionals believe that conditions will continue to be positive through 2019. Their optimism has been backed up by Hodes Weill & Associates, and Cornell University’s sixth annual Institutional Real Estate Allocations Monitor, which found that t