The impact of geopolitics on real estate returns

For more, be sure to also check out PERE's February cover story "Private real estate’s collision course with geopolitics." Geopolitical tensions topped the list of near-term downside risks for businesses in the latest global risk survey by economic forecasting firm Oxford Economics. It is also a risk of particular relevance for the private real estate industry, given how geopolitical conflict stands to have a detrimental effect on property returns on both a macro and micro level. In this episode, PERE editor Evelyn Lee speaks with Abby Rosenbaum, associate director at Oxford Economics, about how geopolitical uncertainty overall contributes to a higher-for-longer interest rate environment, which is considered to be the most damaging risk scenario on real estate performance. At the same time, specific geopolitical conflicts – namely, the escalating war in the Middle East and the looming threat of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait – also have a direct negative impact on real estate returns, but that impact varies by market and sector in less-than-obvious ways.