The Emerging Trends in Real Estate was moderated by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PwC as the program started off by discussing the findings from their research in their annual Emerging Trends reports from the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Simon Hardwick from PwC Legal LLP’s Real Estate Practice opened the session by presenting some of their findings and trends that they believe will be important in the upcoming year in the different markets across the globe.
- From the Emerging Trends report produced by ULI and Pwc, a theme for investors looking to buy in Asia – “You look for projects that you’d be happy to hold until markets stabilize if things do turn.”
- The different mega trends that were mentioned in the report were urbanization, improvements in technology, political changes and unrest and demographic changes are going to have huge impacts in how capital is spent in the future as cities continue to become more densely populated and affordable housing still is an issue in many of the major cities across the globe.
- The market is seeing a more diverse group of untraditional lenders as pension funds and insurance funds are lending which is created more competition with the banks.
- Insurance companies are starting to build up their own debt platform, and the panel believed that the regulations that governments were placing on banks help spur this process.
- Sophie van Oosterom from CBRE Global Investors mentioned that capital is coming from all angles with different IRR risks and expectations from each group. She also discussed how she saw the Asia investors had gone after larger financial transaction or if they were unsuccessful at buying a larger asset they tried to create a joint venture with a group in that market to try and get a better understanding and knowledge of the market that they wanted to go after.
- Rodger Orf discussed how he saw there was capital coming from every continent and not just a few specific locations across the globe.
- Michael Spies talked about the dynamic growth that many people are seeing in Africa and one of the main reasons behind this is the sustained growth that is occurring there over the past few years. However, he said there is a lot of risk in their market and to understand that it is going to be a long term hold, but it could be very profitable in the future if investors are willing to wait.
Casey Fashouer is currently enrolled in the Master of Science in Real Estate of the University of San Diego. Casey is also a contributor and curator for MIPIMWorld.
Victor Alfonso grew up in Los Angeles and received degrees in Economics and Political Science from UC Irvine. He spent 8 years at Westfield and recently joined Brixton Capital as VP Asset Management. Licensed Broker in CA and ICSC member. Victor is an official curator and blogger for MIPIMWorld.
