Our annual Visions Insights & Perspectives Europe conference for this year has just finished — held in sunny Eastbourne on the UK south coast. Yes, it really was, and as we are all ultimately involved in the process of maximising the income of budding and retired pensioners, we thought that we would hold the event in this famously rather aged-population location!

More than 100 leading real estate fund managers and investors came together — with a healthy three-to-one ratio of GPs to LPs.

This is also the week where I celebrate my first anniversary with Institutional Real Estate, Inc, so it’s a good moment for reflection.

The conference covered a whole range of fascinating topics and not surprisingly we had a close look at where we are in the cycle and where the best opportunities may be.

Firstly, a look at a couple of the underlying factors. We all know that the wall of capital looks set to maintain its momentum through 2016 — with an estimate