Despite battling the rapid expansion of e-commerce and near-stagnant economic growth in many regions, retail rents rose by an average of 2.4 percent worldwide in the 12 months to September 2014.

December 2014 continued a mixed pattern of performance witnessed throughout 2014 as the broader markets struggle to reach consensus on the true direction of global and regional growth while still digesting the impact of government policy moves and election results. 

Tokyo in October is a breath of fresh air, which can also be said about the open and honest discussions held there this past October for the seventh annual Editorial Advisory Board meeting for The Institutional Real Estate Letter – Asia Pacific.

For several years now, we have been emphasising that prime, core or gateway markets are crowded and that, as prices have risen, the surest way to achieve outperformance is to target the big secular changes under way in demographics, technology and urbanisation — a theme we have dubbed “DTU”.

With 40 stations linking Reading in the west through London’s city centre and out to Essex in the east, the Crossrail project is transforming the real estate landscape around the British capital.