We just completed our inaugural IREI CEO Summit 2015. Held on 1–2 December 2015 at the Harvard Club on West 44th Street in New York City, this was the first of what will become an annual event specifically designed to enable CEOs from real estate firms around the globe that sponsor our publications to come together, connect with each other, exchange ideas and debate key issues that are important to them.
Seven years into the financial cycle, the memory of the impact and subsequent financial dislocation of the global financial crisis is for many all too clear. Ill-discipline led to overuse of debt, misalignment of strategies and a risky approach that contributed to the eventual global crash.
Poland, famously, was the only national economy in Europe that did not go into recession after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008.
A research note from Legal & General Property has predicted that the rate of rental growth across the United Kingdom’s commercial property sectors will almost double over the next few years.
Four funds were launched during November 2015.
Institutional investors are increasing target allocations to real estate, according to the third annual real estate allocation survey from Hodes Weill & Associates LP and Cornell University’s Baker Program in Real Estate, but at the same time remain significantly underallocated.
Six years on and the “bad bank” industry is less than halfway through expunging legacy commercial real estate loans. Since the trickle of early loan portfolio sales in 2010, the loan sales market in Europe has undergone rapid expansion.
Toward the end of November 2015, I attended the 25th IPD/IPF Property Investment Conference in Brighton and was struck by how some of the most sophisticated investors in the room were concerned with underwriting for rising bond yields, and thus real estate yields.
It is hoped that the United Nations’ climate change summit in December 2015 will stimulate a renewed drive for sustainability in the European real estate sector. At the summit in Paris, representatives from around 200 countries will meet with the aim of sealing a new legally-binding agreement on climate change.
The European real estate market in 2015 looks exciting. The economic recovery is picking up, total returns have been very strong over the previous two years and a growing number of markets are reaching record-low yields.
While European property transaction activity slowed slightly during the third quarter compared with the first two quarters of the year, the year-to-date volume is still up approximately 30 percent compared to the same time in 2014.