CBRE sees dark clouds ahead for global investment levels, but not until 2018
Global investment levels will remain strong for the next three years with “darker clouds” gathering in 2018, according to CBRE’s head of global capital markets Christopher Ludeman.
Ludeman said that upcoming future economic cycles were unlikely to be as severe as that in 2008.
“We have developed a tendency now to judge everything by the correction during the great financial crisis. But that’s like the 100-year flood. We don’t see many of those and so the market will continue to remain strong globally through 2015, 16 and 17. It is 2018 when the clouds get a little darker,” he said.
Ludeman added that global capital flow will continue to increase as investors and developers look to hedge their assets.
Marc Giuffrida, CBRE’s executive director for international capital markets in Asia, agreed that this is certainly the case in Asia.
“We are seeing the amount of money coming out of Asia accelerating as the cycle here is at the upper echelon. So the developers are looking at how to expand. Last year we did $40bn (£27bn) in outbound Asian investment compared to $8bn-$10bn in 2008,” Giuffrida told journalists at the recent MIPIM conference.
Last year Asian real estate buyers looking abroad tend to favor cities that they know well through reputation or travel, said Giuffrida.
"Asian investors continue to show a strong preference for trophy assets in global gateway cities," he said.
New York and London are top choices for buying existing properties, but now Chinese developers are targeting the U.S. West Coast and east coast of Australia for new construction, he said.
In downtown Los Angeles, Shanghai-based Greenland Group recently broke ground on the first phase of a $1-billion condo, hotel and retail project called Metropolis