This was a very
exciting week for three reasons. I was
in Chicago to attend the NAREIM Executive Officers Fall Meeting and I attended
the INREV seminar in New York City. The
third special occurrence was that many of you wrote and spoke with me about the
future of this column. The encouragement
I received was heart-warming to say the least.
One long-time reader told me how the pieces I wrote in 2009, when my Dad
was dying, were very meaningful to him – having lost his Dad a couple of years
before. This is truly special.
I have been
struggling with whether to continue publishing On The Road. After almost 15 years I started to feel that I didn’t
want to be part of the excess ‘noise’. There has been so much clutter created by
blogs, LinkedIn posts and Twitter feeds that I didn’t want to be contributing
to the overload. But, your support and
feedback has convinced me that I should continue publishing.
Thanks again.
Steve
NAREIM Executive Officers Meeting
Patricia
Gibson, President of Hunt Realty in Dallas, was ushered in as Chair of the NAREIM
(National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers) organization for the
next two years. Congratulations to Pat
and to NAREIM. Just as Lynn Thurber, Chairman of LaSalle Investment Management,
has been the Chairman of ULI for the past year, Pat Gibson’s appointment might be
another giant leap for womenkind in the industry. There is undoubtedly a need for more women to
be in senior positions in the institutional real estate world.
At last week’s
Executive Officers meeting, Ed Casal, Global CIO of Aviva Investors Real Estate
Multi-manager platform, conducted a mock investment committee workshop that produced
interesting discussion and results.
Many investment options were presented to 9 ‘committees’ who were each asked
to reach consensus on the 3 best and 3 worst acquisition choices. Real Estate
is an art – not a science - and as you might imagine, the debate on where to
invest one’s money was a lively one.
But, it will only be from the perspective of hindsight that we will know
which asset did in fact provide the best risk-adjusted returns. Interestingly enough, some of the same choices
presented to the investment committees appeared on both the best and worst
lists!
NAREIM offers a
number of educational meetings throughout the year. I encourage you to explore those
opportunities for you and members of your team.
Thank you to NAREIM CEO Gunnar Branson for inviting my partner Liz
Weiner and I to attend the Executive Officers event.
INREV US Seminar
INREV is the
European real estate trade association for investment in non-listed real
estate. I was a member for many years
and found the organization to be hugely valuable in staying connected with my
institutional real estate industry peers across Europe. The second INREV US seminar was held in NYC
this week. I attended and ran into a
number of my European (and American) friends.
I offer you a
few takeaways:
- “Never seen more capital to be invested in real estate.” Panelist
- Huge interest of US capital in Spain – Spanish office looks extremely cheap in a European context
- Most liquid European cities: London, Paris, Berlin (especially apartments)
- Investors are increasingly seeking value in recovering regions (Ireland, The Netherlands, S. Europe).
Thank you to
INREV CEO Matthias Thomas for the invitation.
Over the summer…
I drove from
New York City to Asheville, NC (+/- 12 hours).
Quite a bit of the trip took me through the beautiful Blue Ridge
Mountains including hundreds of miles with no billboards on the highway! Two of my four grandchildren live in
Asheville - Sean is 5 and Gavy turned 3 during my visit. We did another round of Geocaching together,
a real-world treasure hunt. If you’re
not familiar with this phenomenon please check it out – it’s great family fun.
This week, my
Brooklyn-based twin grandchildren, Edie and Ben, turn 3.
It’s a
beautiful thing to see my sons as parents.
But, where did the time go?
Congratulations to these friends on their new positions...
Matt Holberton - AXA Real Estate Investment Managers
Gena Cheng - USAA Real Estate Company
Andrew Dietz - Morgan Stanley
Dietrich Heidtmann - GTIS
George Ahl - Forum Partners
Max von Below - USAA Real Estate Company
Felicity Ambler - MaxCap Group
Philip Hy - JC Penney
Debbie Davis - Starwood Retail Partners
Barry Ziering - Guggenheim Partners
Asieh Mansour - The Townsend Group
Alessadro Bronda - Zurich Insurance Company
Sophie Mathieu - ReedMidem (MIPIM & MAPIC) now based in NYC
Nicole Waldorf - The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Larissa Belova - Thor Equities
Emily Von Kohorn - The Hisar School
Charise Wong - eBay
Damien Isabella - TVO Groupe
Phil Greenberg - Cornell University
On The Road…
Sept. 30 – Oct.
2: Pension Real Estate Association (PREA)
24th Annual Institutional Real Estate Investor Conference, Los
Angeles, CA
Oct. 21 – Oct. 23: ULI Fall Meeting, New York, NY (t)
Oct. 26 – Oct.
29: CoreNet Global, North American
Summit, National
Harbor, MD (t)
Week
of October 27: Careers in Real Estate /
Interview Skills, Drills & Thrills workshop, Edward St. John Real Estate Program, Johns Hopkins Carey
Business School, Washington, DC (t)
Dec. 3 – Dec. 4: NAREIM Capital Raising / Investor Relations
meeting, Chicago, IL
Mar. 10 – 13,
2015: MIPIM (The World’s Property
Market), Cannes, France (t)
Disclaimer
All content in this blog is created for informational purposes only. Content, which includes all text, photos, video and graphics is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. Steve Felix makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or other information as a result of following any featured link to or from this site. The intention of this blog is to do no harm in regards to injury, defamation or libel. What is written or shown is not to be taken as fact or absolute. Steve Felix will hold himself harmless for any errors or omissions in this blog’s information; including but not limited to external link information, translation or interpretation of content or incorrect grammar or punctuation.
