Thought Leadership

CBRE’s 2023 China Investor Intentions Survey was conducted between November 8, 2022, and December 2, 2022. A total of 207 mostly China-based investors participated in the survey, which asked respondents a range of questions regarding their buying appetite and preferred real estate strategies, sectors and markets for 2023.

Pandemic-related uncertainty, geopolitical tension, slower economic growth and weaker leasing fundamentals dampened commercial real estate investment sentiment in China in 2022. Full-year investment volume dropped by 22% y-o-y to RMB 220 billion, while cross-border investment fell by 19% y-o-y to RMB 49 billion. Active sectors included multifamily, science parks and industrial factories, which continued to benefit from the development of a public REIT market.

Respondents’ intentions to “buy more” and “sell more” both dropped in 2023 due to recessionary fears and mounting geopolitical tension, reflecting the mood of caution in the short-term. However, it should be noted that this survey was conducted between November 8, 2022, and December 2, 2022, prior to the government’s unveiling of a 10-point plan signalling a shift away from the zero-covid policy. CBRE expects the relaxation of the zero-covid policy; the release of industrial support policies including the “three arrows”; and the promotion of the platform economy to boost investor sentiment, ensuring actual investment activity eclipses the survey results.

This report was originally published in https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/2023-china-investor-intentions-survey

The last decade was marked by an aggressive expansion of the region’s real estate markets. APREA’s Asia Pacific Market Outlook 2023: Onward and Upward held a session with REIT stakeholders on their business strategies around Covid, e-commerce, changing monetary policies, geopolitics, and new priorities (ESG) and the next set of challenges and opportunities.

Enough has been written about the impact of Budget 2023 on REITs and InvITs. Through this piece, Resolut Partners tries to succinctly capture the what, why, and what next of the proposed changes – keeping it germane mainly to global financial investors.

Key Takeaways:

• Distributions out of repayment of debt principal could now be taxed as ‘other income’ – at odds with global standards
• Distributions out of debt repayments through redemption of units not treated as ‘income’, but reduce cost of acquisition – InvIT / REIT Regulations do not permit redemption of units
• Major impact on IRRs as distribution structure of most InvITs factored in distributions through debt repayments
• Changes and policy ambiguity could thwart the growth of REITs / InvITs, which were just about seen as ‘bond proxies’

Rising interest rates are causing buyers to be mindful of the associated costs when transacting a property. For an international buyer, these costs can vary substantially across jurisdictions. Expressed as a percentage of property prices, they range from under 10% in Chinese cities to 35% in Singapore.

In an increasingly competitive market, Singapore’s government has maintained their Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) at 30% for foreign buyers purchasing any residential property.

In comparison to other regions, North American cities cost of ownership comprises a substantial share of the buying, holding and selling cost of a property. These costs are largely comprised of annual property tax and house insurance.

This report was originally published in https://www.savills.com/research_articles/255800/339112-0

In the last five years, Asia’s share of the FTSE EPRA/Nareit Developed Index, the most widely followed real estate index globally, has declined from 25.0% in 2017 to 21.0% at the end of 2022.  This movement can be largely attributed to the growth of U.S. REITs, shifting the balance of power within the listed universe further to North America, whose share of the index rose from 57.1% in 2017 to 64.0% in 2022.

The growth in the U.S. REIT universe has been driven by the emergence of a wide range of alternative real estate sectors that have arisen from structural shifts in the economy and strong demand from equity investors.  The share of these alternatives in the U.S. portion of FTSE EPRA/Nareit Developed Index rose from 34.0% in 2007, to 47.5% in 2017 and 55.0% in 2022.

Growth in the U.S. listed REIT universe has been so prominent, that index constructors such as FTSE introduced capped indices, limiting the size of the U.S. component to avoid global indices being increasingly seen as ‘US & others’ and diminishing their usefulness to investors.

One might ask: Why has Asia been unable to keep pace with the growth in U.S. alternative REITs? In fact, Asia’s alternative REIT universe has grown even faster than in the U.S.. While Asia’s weight in the global REIT index fell – from 27.1% in 2017 to 21.0% in 2022, the weight of Asian alternative REITs increased from 2.3% of the global index to 3.8%, respectively. Looking only at the Asian REIT universe, alternative REITs grew their weight by an impressive 114.7%, from 8.5% in 2017 to 18.2% 2022.

This paper, written by Joachim Kehr, Head of Asia-Pacific and a Senior Partner at CenterSquare Investment Management, investigates the sectors behind the expansion of alternative REITs in the U.S. and Asia over time and explores which sectors offer the biggest growth potential for Asian alternative REITs, proposing additional steps to sustain this growth going forward.

As international container shipping increases, so does the need for more logistics real estate—especially in seaport markets. In this report, CBRE looks at 18 well-established and emerging seaports to understand their capabilities and connections to other ports, as well as how they influence nearby industrial real estate markets.

Key findings:

• Ocean shipping keeps growing—more than 80% of the world’s merchandise trade by volume is seaborne, of which more than half is shipped in ocean containers—driving strong demand for logistics space near seaports.
• E-commerce sales and holding more inventory to guard against supply chain disruptions are also spurring demand for industrial & logistics properties—especially those with strong transportation links to seaports.
• Transportation costs are a paramount consideration in site selection, accounting for 45% to 70% of logistics spend, versus 3% to 6% for fixed facility costs like rent.
• Ongoing risks—including persistent inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions and pandemic-related disruptions—are prompting companies to reevaluate supply chain strategies and locations.

This report was originally published in https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/2022-global-seaport-review

Real estate investors enter 2023 facing a very different investment landscape to the one they encountered at the beginning of 2022. Many property markets were still riding high this time last year. In 2021, they had delivered the strongest returns since before the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), bouncing back from COVID-19-related weakness on the back of pent-up demand and a particularly buoyant industrial market. As 2022 progressed, however, that pent-up economic demand combined with exogenous supply shocks associated with the Russia-Ukraine war drove inflation to levels not seen in decades.

The future for real estate investing has not been so uncertain since the GFC, and this new environment presents many challenges for investors: Overall deal activity has plummeted as investors pause to reassess the risks they face and underwrite appropriately. While it is clear that sentiment is weak, this pause in activity levels means that pricing evidence is scarce; and for that reason, it will be important to triangulate from a range of data types and sources. Without the tailwind of compressing yields, returns will be driven more by occupier-market fundamentals — which, for office markets, are at a structural turning point. Understanding the interplay of rental growth, occupancy and expenses on delivered income across markets and property types will be key. These factors will be just a selection of the growing number of inputs that may drive asset performance in an increasingly complex investment environment. The ability to attribute risk and performance to a growing number of factors like yield and leasing profile, as well as exposure to more secular risks like climate change, will be increasingly important for investors.

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The rush of post-pandemic activity in the data center space seen throughout 2021 continued in 2022, despite headwinds in the overall economy and resource challenges in some of the largest markets worldwide. Hyperscale tenants continued their relentless expansion across regions, with specific interest toward secondary and emerging markets. Co-location providers and developers have followed suit, driven by higher availability and lower prices for both power and land.

The 2023 Global Data Center Market Comparison reviews all factors outlined in the previous edition of this report, with further commentary on a region-by-region basis. As with previous editions, we assess data center markets across the globe, within 13 different categories, to determine the top overall markets along with the top performers in each category. With this fourth edition of the report, we hope to provide members of the data center community with a better understanding of how the industry is rapidly changing and expanding across the globe.

Despite the challenges of juggling an economy under the weight of its zero-covid policies and stringent macroprudential measures, the Chinese government has remained steadfast in implementing its vision for the country’s REIT market. 2022 ticked off another milestone in the ongoing evolution, as China’s first batch of rental property REITs went public in August, deepening financing channels for the country’s real estate sector.

Strong regulatory backing, quality asset base and robust underlying demand for dividend-rich stocks from investors in China’s US$12 trillion stock markets will remain supportive of the sector’s strong valuations. Progress is palpable, and we can expect more C-REIT listings in 2023. The inclusion of conventional commercial real estate – arguably the proverbial holy grail and the final frontier in the evolution of C-REITs – is nearing reality and the wave of listings that follow will undoubtedly be a massive investment opportunity.

As many economies continue to raise interest rates to tackle inflation, and with growing concerns of a recession in other parts of the world, Asia Pacific investors have become more cautious, with net buying intention softening in 2023. 

CBRE’s 2023 Asia Pacific Investor Intentions Survey, which features insights from more than 500 investors across the region, finds that although fundraising activity remains healthy, most investors intend to adopt a wait-and-see stance in the first half of 2023 in anticipation of slower yield expansion and milder rate hikes.

Other key findings include:

• Real estate allocations among Asia-based institutional investors are largely below their global peers. These respondents indicate that their allocations to real estate will remain the same or increase over the next 12 months.
• Opportunistic strategies will gain momentum in 2023 as investors look to capitalise on price dislocation and seek distressed opportunities.
• Industrial and logistics remains the most preferred asset class, while residential (especially multifamily and built-to-rent) logged the strongest uptick in interest. Offices are still the top property type among core investors.
• Although healthcare-related properties have overtaken data centres to become the most popular alternative sector, the investible universe for this asset class in Asia Pacific remains limited.
• Tokyo retained its status as the top city for cross-border investment for a fourth consecutive year, followed by Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City.

This report was originally published in https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/asia-pacific-investor-intentions-survey-2023