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The London office market is a major destination of international real estate capital and arguably the epicentre of international real estate investment over the past decade. However, the increase in global uncertainties in recent years due to socio-economic and political trends highlights the need for more insights into the behaviour of international real estate capital flows. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the global and domestic environment on international real estate investment activities within the London office market over the period 2007–2017.

This study adopts an auto-regressive distributed lag approach using the real capital analytics (RCA) international real estate investment data. The RCA data analyses quarterly cross-border investment transactions within the central London office market for the period 2007–2017.

The study provides insights on the critical differences in the influence of the domestic and global environment on cross-border investment activities in this office market, specifically highlighting the significance of the influence of the global environment in the long run. In the short run, the influence of factors reflective of both the domestic and international environment are important indicating that international capital flows into the London office market is contextualised by the interaction of different factors.

The authors provide a holistic study of the influence of both the domestic and international environment on cross-border investment activities in the London office market, providing more insights on the behaviour of global real estate capital flows.

The Asian real estate markets have grown considerably in recent years and have taken on increased investment importance, particularly with significant developments in the emerging markets in Asia. This paper assesses the opportunities for more research on the Asian real estate markets, by highlighting the significance of Asia real estate, the drivers behind this growth and the unique opportunities this presents for high-quality real estate research, by both local researchers and their international colleagues. Strategies for delivering this research agenda are also identified.

This research is based on a thorough understanding of the Asian real estate markets, based on my own research agenda, personal interactions, insights and extensive discussions with real estate leaders in the Asian markets. This is supported by a clear understanding of the real estate research opportunities in the Asian markets and the strategies needed to deliver this research agenda in an effective manner.

A range of real estate research areas are identified to increase the level of Asian real estate research. This sees research opportunities around key areas such as market dynamics, real estate investment vehicles, alternate real estate sectors, infrastructure and sustainability. Strategies for expanding this level of research for both local and international real estate researchers are also identified.

With the Asian real estate markets taking on more importance with many international real estate investors, it is important to see more high-quality research into these dynamic real estate markets. This research will see a fuller understanding of these Asian real estate markets to enable more informed real estate investment decision-making.

The need for more high-quality research into the Asian real estate markets is clearly presented, with enabling strategies to achieve this agenda identified. This will see expanded research opportunities to critically research these unique real estate markets and produce high-quality research publications.

Office markets and particularly international financial centres over the past decade have experienced rapid financialisation, developments and indeed changes in the post-global financial crisis (GFC) landscape. Importantly, the volume and types of international capital flows have witnessed more foreign actors and vehicles entering into the investment landscape with the concentration of investment intensifying within key financial centres. This paper examines the interaction of international real estate capital flows in the London, New York and Tokyo office markets between 2007 and 2017.

Using Real Capital Analytics (RCA) data comprising over 5,700 office property transactions equating to $563bn between 2007 and 2017, the direct global capital flows into the London, New York and Tokyo office markets are assessed using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. Further, Granger causality tests are examined to analyse the short-run interaction of international real estate capital flows into these three major office markets.

By assessing the relativity of internal to external investments in these three central business district (CBD) office markets, differences in market dynamics are highlighted. The London office market is shown to be highly dependent on international flows and the USA, the foremost source of cross-border investment on the global stage. The cointegration and causality analysis indicate that cross-border real estate investment flows in these markets (and financial centres) show both long- and short-run relationships and suggest that the London office market remains more distinct and the most reliant on international capital flows with a wider geographical spread of investment activities and investor types. In the case of New York and Tokyo, these markets appear to be driven by more domestic investment activity and capital seemingly due to subtle factors pertaining to investor home bias, risk aversion and diversification strategies between the markets in the aftermath of the GFC.

Given the importance of the CBD offices in London, New York and Tokyo as an asset class for institutional investors, this paper provides some insights as to their level of connection and the interaction of the international capital flows into these three major cities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the volatility spectral of five major public real estate markets, namely, the USA, the UK, Japan (JP), Hong Kong (HK), and Singapore (SG), during the pre- and post-global financial crisis (GFC) periods.

First, univariate spectral analysis is concerned with discovering price cycles for the respective real estate markets. Second, bivariate cross-spectral analysis seeks to uncover whether any two real estate price series share common cycles with regard to their relative magnitudes and lead-lag patterns of the cyclical variations. Finally, to test the contagion effects, the authors estimate the exact percentage change in co-spectral density (cyclical covariance) due to high frequencies (short run) after the GFC.

The authors find that whilst none of the public real estate markets examined are spared from the crisis, the three Asian markets were less severely affected by the GFC and were accompanied by a reversal in volatility increase three years post-global financial crisis. Additionally, the public real estate markets studied have become more cyclically linked in recent years. This is particularly true at longer frequencies. Finally, these increased cyclical co-movements measure the outcomes of contagion and indicate fairly strong contagious effects between the public real estate markets examined due to the crisis.

The implication of this research is that benefits to investors from international real estate diversification may not be as great during the present time compared to previous periods because national public real estate markets have become more correlated. Nevertheless, the findings do not imply the complete absence of diversification benefits. This is because although cyclical correlations increase in the short run, many of the correlation values are still between low and moderate range, indicating that some diversification benefits may still be realized.

Given the significant market share and the highest levels of securitization in Asia-Pacific markets including JP, HK/China, and SG, this cyclical research including major public real estate markets has practical implications for ongoing international real estate investment strategies, particularly for the USA/UK and Asian portfolio managers.

This paper contributes to the limited research on the cyclical return and co-movement dynamics among major public real estate markets during financial/economic crisis in international finance. Moreover, the frequency-domain analysis conducted in this paper adds to better understanding regarding the impact of GFC on the cyclical return volatility and co-movement dynamics of major developed public real estate markets in international investing.

The real estate market has evolved significantly over the past 10 years and has experienced rapid growth throughout the world in its various forms. Many emerging countries witnessed the significant growth in their commercial real estate markets that became a stable sector of their economies. These countries, after developing a reliable commercial real estate base within their economies subsequently developed real estate financial markets. The growth of the real estate investment trusts, REITs, markets in many countries within the past decade helped attract global capital that facilitated additional investments in local real estate developments. Significantly, this period of time may have witnessed a higher degree of integration of real estate with the broader financial markets due in large part to the securitization of mortgages. Yet the general real estate market was also impacted in many parts of the world with rising prices and subsequent price collapses. This section focuses on the various areas of the global real estate market and the changes that it has encountered as examined by researchers of real estate. This chapter also examines the recent trends in global real estate markets and explores how these changes have affected the broader investment community.

The paper seeks to examine cycles and common cycles in the real estate markets of the UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia using a combination of time domain and frequency domain methods.

The paper identifies the patterns of cyclical movement (if any) in the five public real estate markets, and searches for common cycle characteristics and patterns in international real estate markets. In addition to the time domain analyses, these empirical investigations are further empowered by a frequency domain method that includes spectral and co‐spectral analyses.

International real estate markets are characterized by cyclical behavior that exhibits phenomenal fluctuations. The markets are also pro‐cyclical; they do tend to move together. Furthermore, some differences in the patterns of the common cycles and their lead‐lag linkages are evident.

International investors would probably benefit from diversifying real estate stocks across the UK and Asian real estate markets, especially in the short and medium terms. However, the long‐term cyclical patterns across the national real estate stock markets are not sharply different, indicating that smaller diversification benefits are to be expected in the long term.

Common cycle analysis advances investors' understanding of the long‐term relationship and medium‐ and short‐term linkages across international real estate markets, thereby allowing investors and portfolio managers an opportunity to discern any contrasting cyclical patterns at all frequencies so as to assist in their portfolio decisions.

Within the context of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance), environmental sustainability has taken on increased global importance in recent years. Similarly, real estate investment managers in developing their global real estate investment portfolios need a fuller understanding of the ESG and environmental sustainability dimensions of these global real estate markets for more informed real estate investment decisions. Using the JLL GRETI sustainability sub-index, this paper examines the environmental sustainability transparency status of 99 global real estate markets over 2016–2020 and explores various strategic issues regarding ESG and environmental sustainability; particularly the critical issues relating to climate risk mitigation, climate resilience and zero-carbon. The current status of environmental sustainability in these 99 real estate markets is assessed, with areas for “best practice” improvement identified to the benefit of real estate investment managers; particularly the improvements needed in ESG to support real estate investment in the emerging real estate markets.

The JLL GRETI sustainability sub-index is analysed to examine strategic issues relating to environmental sustainability transparency. 99 real estate markets are assessed globally for a range of critical ESG issues over 2016–2020. Differences between the developed and emerging real estate markets are highlighted.

Considerable variation was seen in the ESG and environmental sustainability practices, procedures and frameworks across these 99 real estate markets. This was particularly evident amongst the emerging real estate markets. Compared to the other five dimensions for real estate market transparency, environmental sustainability was seen to be well behind these other dimensions in most markets. Progress has been made in recent years, but it has been slow and steady rather than at a dynamic level. Clearly, more is needed globally to enhance the stature of environmental sustainability in the context of an increasing focus on ESG and specifically on climate risk mitigation, climate resilience and zero-carbon in real estate investment.

With ESG and environmental sustainability taking on increased importance across the international real estate markets, it is important that real estate fund managers have a full understanding of the ESG and environmental sustainability status of these real estate markets where they may be considering real estate investment opportunities; this includes both the developed and emerging real estate markets. This is essential to ensure future capital raising for new funds, as well as supporting the global ESG agenda by the real estate investment community. Specific strategies are also identified for emerging real estate markets to improve their environmental sustainability practices and ESG status.

This is the first paper to use the JLL GRETI sustainability sub-index to assess the environmental sustainability status of 99 real estate markets globally; providing strategic insights for real estate investment managers as they develop their global real estate portfolios and more fully embrace the challenges of ESG and environmental sustainability in the real estate space going forward. Specific strategies are clearly identified for all markets to improve their environmental sustainability ratings to the benefit of both global real estate investment and the broader communities.

As 1987 progressed the reverberations of the Big Bang continued to send shock waves through the investment markets. One such wave, which emanated from ‘deregulation’, is enhanced international portfolio diversification opportunities for the investor. If real estate is to compete successfully with other investment media and other financial centres also in the process of deregulation, it must urgently adapt to meet this challenge. Property analysts must respond positively to this global investment market by providing new and diversified real estate investment opportunities for the investor — the alternative is to allow real estate attractiveness as an international investment option to sink into a decaying trough. As a response to this challenge, I recently undertook research into the potential benefits of diversifying funds into international real estate assets supported by the use of correlation analysis. The findings and implications are relevant to any institution or individual which has the resources globally to expand or establish a real estate investment portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and revisit the risk and performance of publicly traded real estate companies from 14 countries over the period 2000–2015, marked by the unprecedented Global Financial Crisis, in presence of errors-in-variables (EIV) and illiquidity (measured by serial correlation, following Getmansky et al. (2004)).

The authors extend the seminal work of Bond et al. (2003), and shed a new light on the relative performance of listed real estate before and after the GFC. First, the authors suggest the use of various asset pricing models (APM) including the Fama and French (2015) five-factor APM with global and country-level factors. Second, the authors implement unbiased estimators to correct for the econometric bias induced by EIV in APM. Third, the authors deal with the impact of illiquidity (measured by serial correlation) on the risk properties of international securitized real estate returns.

The findings show that post-GFC, a radical change in international listed real estate risk factors has resulted in more homogeneous markets internationally and less diversification opportunities for international investors.

The authors suggest the use of robust linear APM (including the Fama and French (2015) five-factor APM) to analyze the risk and performance of publicly traded real estate companies from 14 countries over the period 2000–2015.

The authors analyze and revisit the risk and performance of publicly traded real estate companies from 14 countries over the period 2000–2015, marked by the unprecedented Global Financial Crisis.

Real estate investment has been generally accepted as a value-adding proposition for a portfolio investor. Such an impression is not only shared by investment professionals and financial advisors but also appears to be supported by an overwhelming amount of research in the academic literature. The benefits of adding real estate as an asset class to a well-diversified portfolio are usually attributed to the respectable risk-return profile of real estate investment together with the relatively low correlation between its returns and the returns of other financial assets. By using the regime-switching technique on an extensive historical dataset, we attempt to look for the statistical evidence for such a claim. Unfortunately, the empirical support for the claim is neither strong nor universal. We find that any statistically significant improvement in risk-adjusted return is very much limited to the bullish environment of the real estate market. In general, the diversification benefit is not found to be statistically significant unless investors are relatively risk averse. We also document a regime-switching behavior of real estate returns similar to those found in other financial assets. There are two distinct states of the real estate market. The low-return (high-return) state is characterized by its high (low) volatility and its high (low) correlations with the stock market returns. We find this kind of dynamic risk characteristics to play a crucial role in dictating the diversification benefit from real estate investment.