If the impact of COVID-19 was not enough on real estate over the past year, asset owners were faced with the ramifications from the early release scheme as funds eagerly sought liquidity. This session covers the asset owners’ learnings as they dealt with the lack of liquidity in unlisted fund structures, the volatility of public and private valuations, obstacles with due diligence and an impending challenge of benchmarking performance.

COVID-19 has exacerbated fundamental shifts in technology, culture and the environment. These changes have threatened the resilience of many real estate sectors. This session will compare and contrast the overarching themes affecting global real estate and how investors may seek to adjust their strategy?

The global lockdowns have acted as a catalyst for online retail. Brick and mortar are facing a harsh reality to offer an improved experience. Despite the headwinds, retail space may be oversold and could act as a value play given the desire to resurrect urban areas. This session explores the spectrum of opportunities as landlords consider how to reinvent their occupant mix and leverage transport hubs to support urban regeneration.

Traditional real estate is shaking at its core. This session will discuss the state of play and how the alternative real estate classes have performed through the pandemic. It will dive into the ongoing transformation in the market, potential challenges, and resilience in student housing, medical office and storage.  

As investors move beyond exclusion processes, they aspire to fully understand the processes in action across all asset elements, from materials, energy use and emissions, through employment standards, governance structures and tax adherence. This session considers the latest workaround investment stewardship and embedding the UN sustainable development goals.

A short presentation will lead this interactive session hosted over the Remo networking technology by David Bell and then move to open discussion amongst the asset owners, consultants and the asset managers. 

Property technology is unleashing a broad range of designs from manufacturing, building safety, and hardware to software and listings apps. This session will cover these disruptive platforms and solutions as they change how property is being used, maintained and transformed today.

The pandemic and its associated lockdowns have inspired a rapid pivot towards more effective digital communications and remote working. The impact has led to questions on revitalising some commercial real estate. This session will explore the ongoing process to refurbish, transform and reimagine assets for the future.

Investors have a range of options in establishing a diverse and resilient portfolio of real estate assets. Diversification can take place across deal structure, geography and sectors of the economy. This session considers case studies of how an asset owner and managing are thinking around the mix of core, niche, locations and deal types to protect their members in an uncertain world.

Domestic institutional investors are increasingly looking further afield to complement their traditional core real estate exposures that are nascent within Australia and source diversification. This session considers the opportunities associated with speciality investments in Europe and the propensity for this market to mirror the US's trends exhibited by similar assets.

Many investors are looking at niche opportunity sets in real estate to offer diversification and potential outperformance. This session invites consultants to survey the marketplace and to share examples of perceptive niche investments ideas.