While overall investor sentiment remains cautious, recent economic and financial conditions have allowed large investors, such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, to increase their exposure to property and provide much-needed equity at a time when debt finance is in short supply.
What are the primary obligations of a real estate investment manager? One of these obligations, for sure, is to be transparent: to be open, to be willing at all times to disclose what’s going on.
Rental growth is decelerating, with slightly more than one-third of major global markets registering rental increases during third quarter 2012. The Americas experienced moderate office rent growth during the quarter as prime rents increased 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter. This represents further deceleration from the 1.1 percent quarter-over-quarter pace during the second quarter, and is the slowest quarterly growth since first quarter 2011.
Despite a backdrop of a lethargic global economy and continued uncertainty surrounding the euro zone, prime retail rents were resilient over the year to June 2012, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest Main Streets Across the World report.
Secondary market transactions are on the rise — and with good reason. These transactions are often consummated at a discount to the net asset value of the underlying assets and provide investors with some special advantages.
As growth among the world’s largest emerging economies continues spawning new investment capital, a pertinent question looms: Which of those revved-up economies appear positioned to start making direct investments in U.S. trophy properties and construction projects, much as the Japan Inc. did during its 1980s heyday? As various experts and research from Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) suggest, look mostly to the east and south — as in the Far East and South America.
Let’s fantasize for a moment that e-commerce in the United States will continue to grow 10 percent to 15 percent a year and eventually bulldoze brick-and-mortar retail.
Even though the unemployment rate is trickling down ever so slowly, companies are now creating more jobs for which they cannot find qualified candidates. The paradox: Too many Americans cannot find jobs, yet too many companies cannot fill open positions. It is a real modern-day dilemma, one for which the past offers no precedent.