When business districts hollowed out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and downtowns became ghost towns, a top-flight office building in a gateway city, filled with blue-chip financial clients, lost its lustre. Those assets, once the ideal institutional holding, suddenly became liabilities.
The commercial real estate sector is currently facing a range of downside risks stemming from rising interest rates, ongoing property market adjustments, and softer fundraising conditions. Because of this, CBRE recommends looking further into the four quadrants of commercial real estate investment.
For generations, real estate has provided one of the sturdiest bulwarks against money inflation, whether in stagflationary slumps or price-surging boom times. In general, in the United States, over most periods, property has outperformed inflation while throwing off income along the way.
Timberland has historically provided attractive risk-adjusted returns and portfolio diversification benefits, in part due to its low correlation with other asset classes, such as bonds and equities. Its relative safety and insulation from financial markets has made it a coveted staple of institutional portfolios with long investment horizons.
Not everyone who reads this column is responsible for managing people, but at some time in your career, if not now, you may be called upon to do so. Ferdinand Fournies, the author of the book Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To Do and What To Do About It, points out that being promoted into a management role for the first time is akin to being knighted.
Investment in emerging Asia was addressed in a recent virtual roundtable with institutional investors, consultants and investment managers. The in-depth strategy session, hosted by Institutional Real Estate, Inc, was moderated by Reno Sio, managing director, Asia Pacific, at IREI.
Real estate fundraising encountered a significant bump in the road in the third quarter of 2023. Only US$13.1 billion was raised by the 16 funds holding a final close in July–September, according to the latest results from Institutional Real Estate, Inc’s proprietary database, IREI.Q.
Asia Pacific’s office market is faring better than that of most other regions, particularly the United States, as more workers have returned to the office and downtown office space continues to garner attraction from national and multinational companies. That is one of the main takeaways from a recent webinar, “Go Prime or Stay Home: Lasalle, Brookfield, Yardi, Benoy on Future of the Office,” hosted by Mingtiandi.
Investment activity is expected to increase steadily across the Asia Pacific region in 2024, according to Colliers’ 2024 Global Investor Outlook, released 29 November 2023.
The built environment has always had a powerful role to play in creating and sustaining communities — it is where people live, work, learn and play. When reporting on ESG, however, environmental and governance metrics often take precedence over social aspects.