Institutional investors are pursuing a variety of real estate strategies that are sending mixed signals on their reading of the current cycle.

At an Institutional Real Estate Europe seminar at the London Business School on 27 June, both LPs and GPs revealed that there is no general consensus as to where the market is heading through the rest of 2019 and into 2020, which has resulted in a marked divergence in capital allocation plans.

Both LPs and GPs speaking at the seminar were at variance over the merits of investing in Europe within the current climate. Speaking on a panel of LPs, Gila Cohen, managing director, real estate and private equity at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, said that there had been a pause in investment into Europe among some investors at the start of the year as they waited to see what would happen with Brexit. More recently, deal flow has picked up, she said, perhaps due to people losing patience with any resolution emerging from Europe