Thought Leadership

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.

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.