CBRE Global In-Sights

Frank Chen, Head of China Research, looks at China, where the economy has slowed in the first half of 2012. Growth is expected to recover, however, as the government increases its efforts to stimulate the economy. Inflation has fallen significantly and should provide authorities with enough room to introduce more stimulus measures. In the office sector occupier demand has slowed, especially from multinationals.

Zoltan Moricz, Head of New Zealand Research, looks at New Zealand, whose economy continues to perform well in contrast to the more subdued global economy. The main driver is the rebuilding work taking place in Christchurch in the wake of the 2011 earthquake. In New Zealand’s investment market, the investor base continues to broaden, with local institutional purchasers entering the market along with offshore buyers.

In light of broader market volatility and lackluster economic growth, capital flows to real estate have been resilient and pricing has remained relatively firm, albeit for the best assets. Russell Ingrum, a leader in CBRE’s capital markets group, provides insight into the current capital market environment for U.S. commercial real estate, focusing on flows, availability of debt and equity financing, strategic opportunities, and expectations on pricing and cap rate trends.

George Relyea, Project Director of CBRE’s Global Office Occupier Guide, discusses some of the key variables typical of office leasing across the globe. In this Global In-Sights, hosted by Raymond Torto, George discusses four of ten key leasing variables—term, breaks, renewals and subleasing—and discusses how they vary across the markets.

Dr. Nick Axford, CBRE’s Head of Asia Pacific Research, looks at which factors are currently influencing occupier and investment activity across the region. He highlights how Asia is being affected by events elsewhere in the world, with investors facing an uncertain political and economic outlook. Despite these circumstances, interest in high quality real estate remains strong in Asia, where relatively robust economic growth offers significant opportunities. Movement of capital around the region is now stronger than global flows into Asia Pacific, potentially heralding a longer-term shift in investor activity. The result is an exciting but challenging market where investors are competing aggressively to secure the best opportunities.

In this Global In-Sights, CBRE’s Global Chief Economist, Raymond Torto, provides a synopsis of his recent presentation on prime commercial real estate’s attractiveness to investors, given in Santiago, Chile. The discussion covered capital pricing and leasing market fundamentals around the world. The full slide deck of this presentation is linked above.

Raymond Torto, CBRE Global Chief Economist, discussed the U.S. market at the recent CBRE Fudosan Seminar in Tokyo. In this Global In-Sights, Ray summarizes his remarks during the Seminar. The full slide deck of his presentation is linked above.

Nick Axford, Head of Asia Pacific Research, discusses his presentation at the Fudosan Seminar sponsored by CBRE in Tokyo. His overview of the Asia Pacific region’s economy and commercial real estate market discussed whether the region can be considered the global bright spot. This Global In-Sights is a short summary of Nick’s conclusions. The full slide deck for the presentation is linked above.

“Opportunities Amidst the Turmoil” is the subtitle to Peter Damesick’s overview of the European commercial real estate market. Peter, EMEA Chief Economist for CBRE gave the talk at the Fudosan Seminar sponsored by CBRE in Tokyo the week of April 23rd. This Global In-Sights podcast is a short summary of Peter’s thesis and the slide deck linked above is the presentation in total.

In this Global In-Sights podcast, Spencer Levy, Executive Managing Director for CBRE Capital Markets, shares his view on the commercial real estate debt and equity finance markets. What are current key sources of capital, what is the current pricing of CRE debt, and what are expectations going forward? Are there key sectors that are attracting most of the capital flows? What are expectations for interest rates and how are investors underwriting the possibility of an interest rate spike in the next 2 to 3 years? What are some of the key positive trends that we suggest our clients look out for when selecting markets in which to invest?

As its fundamentals have improved swiftly, leading to lower vacancy rates and stronger effective rent gains, multi-housing has emerged as investors’ favorite property sector.  Gateway markets continue to attract a disproportionate share of investor capital, which has led to further compression of multi-housing cap rates.  Meanwhile, improvements in NOI growth and tight apartment vacancy rates are encouraging new development.  In this Global In-Sights podcast, Gleb Nechayev reviews the outlook for multi-housing supply across key U.S. markets, keeping an eye to any supply-side risks that may dampen the fundamentals.

In this Global In-Sights, Nicholas Maclean discusses Dubai—gateway market to the Arab Emirates. Director of CBRE Middle East, Nick has lived in region since 2004. He explains the market segments and opportunities, and points out that, for those with some willingness to take on risk, current going-in yields are in the range of 7 ½ - 8%.

In this Global In-Sights presentation, Raymond Torto summarizes his presentation at the Kuwait Finance House Conference in Kuwait City. The full presentation, which concerns the outlook for the global economy and commercial real estate, is available for download. Also, the related Viewpoint article, The Global View for 2012, authored by Nick Axford, Peter Damesick, Asieh Mansour and Ray Torto is available at cbre.com/research under Global Reports.

In this Global In-Sights podcast, Asieh Mansour and John O’Bryan discuss the North American economic outlook, with a focus on Canada in particular. This presentation was originally given by Asieh and John to the Canadian chapter of CBRE Facility Managers. Andy Basacchi, CBRE Director of Facility Management for the Infrastructure Ontario account in Toronto, and chair of the chapter, was the host for the meeting.

In light of market volatility stemming from the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, we focus on the outlook for U.S. commercial real estate capital markets and pricing trends. Increased risk aversion continues to strengthen demand for core assets, which may sustain high valuations in the near term. But what are the longer-term projections for cap rates and pricing? CBRE’s own Jim Costello, Serguei Chervachidze and Mark Gallagher provide their perspectives in this edition of Global Insights.