Office, industrial and resi property could get better returns if the had the same levels of transparent data as retail, delegates at the PropertyEU Asset Management Briefing have heard.
Office, industrial and resi property could get better returns if the had the same levels of transparent data as retail, delegates at the PropertyEU Asset Management Briefing have heard.
‘Retail is the sector to learn from,’ said Roland Holschuh, a member of the Commerz Real management board, ‘because the retail centre managers have the very best understanding of their clients: not only their tenants, but their tenants’ clients. The analogy in office would be if an asset manager and property manager tracked movements in an area over five years, how long people stay, where they go to lunch and so on, and we are light years from this.’
Richard Gerritsen, a European director for Yardi Systems, agreed. ‘Office is still straightforward: it’s the least advanced,’ he said. ‘We see a lot of development on the resi side, but retail is the most demanding because we need info on tenant levels but also retail operators want a visitor analysis of sales numbers and so on.’
A similar level of detail can help other sectors to mitigate risk, said Norbert Rolf, head of the property companies division of Strabag.
‘It’s about transparency of data down to micro-locations, quality, real rent and prices,’ he said. ´In the past, people were much more global and would say, “Berlin is great, you need to invest,” but if you look at the rents, they’re far below other capitals. It came out fine in the end but there was a lot of luck.
‘But if you have very close asset manager and property manager knowledge of the micro-location, you can better judge and mitigate investment risks.’
The Asset Management briefing was held during Expo Real. Click here to watch highlights from the briefing.
