A change in the somewhat arcane Global Industry Classification Standards will better define public real estate, with potential ripple effects for private real estate, as well.

It’s coming. Everyone knows it — but not when, what will cause it, or how bad it will be. “It” is the next downturn, of course. If you are looking for signs it may be approaching, pick your poison.

Hing Yin Lee is executive director of China Ping An Trust Co, the investment arm of China’s Ping An Insurance Group. Lee recently spoke with Jonathan Schein, Institutional Real Estate, Inc’s senior vice president and managing director of global business development, about the firm’s approach to overseas property investment and the type of deals it finds most attractive.

Earlier this year, on June 27, Alvin Toffler died. For those few of you who’ve never heard of him, Toffler released a seminal and oddly prophetic tome called Future Shock in 1970. In that work, he coined the term “information overload” — an experience with which we’ve all become intimately familiar today, 46 years later.