The June edition of RCA's Global Capital Trends reports that property sales in the Americas are projected at $8 billion for the second quarter, off just 6% from Q1 but down 83% year-over-year. In EMEA markets, Q2 transactions are off 24% from Q1 to $17.3 billion, a 71% YOY drop. However, Asia Pacific numbers are in the positive column, with RCA projecting an 18% gain on the prior quarter for a total of $23.3 billion--nearly half the global total for Q2.
Robert M. White Jr., RCA's founder and president, tells GlobeSt.com that "we're probably at the bottom" for transaction activity but the rate of upturn will be sporadic across the globe. "If anything, the downturn was correlated more closely across property rates and geographic regions than the recovery will be," he says.
However, White adds that there are encouraging signs outside of China, Japan and Australia. "Activity in Europe is growing, especially the UK," he says. "And there is a buzz in the US, too. In the past few weeks, we've seen more and larger deals. I wouldn't say it's a quick rebound, but frankly I don't think volume could sink any lower in the US."
If deal velocity has hit a trough, pricing may be a different story, White says. "We may already be there, but none of it will be realized until these distressed deals close," he says, adding that "we can look forward to more activity" this fall and through year's end.
One continuing trouble spot will be the former Soviet bloc. "Eastern Europe is one of my biggest worries right now," says White. "Investment there held up pretty well; it was one of the last of the markets to see activity drop off. A lot of loans there were euro-denominated, and because of changes in the currency, a number of them are under water." Eastern European assets are falling into distress at more than 10 times the rate of Western European properties: a 982% increase YTD compared to a 69% gain in the western half of the continent, according to RCA.
In Western Europe, a particularly bright spot is an uptick in activity by German investors. "In April, the Germans raised another half-billion euros"--about $690 million--for their open-ended funds, on top of a billion raised in the first quarter," White says. Although that fund-raising mechanism is "kind of unique" to Germany, White adds that it's not so different from the non-traded REITs that have been amassing capital via retail investors. "We're definitely seeing more capital raised, and it's not institutional," he says. "It's definitely the mom-and-pop, entrepreneurial type of investors capitalizing some of these deals."
German investors--who have gravitated more toward quality rather than distress--aren't the only ones who have been active lately in cross-border transactions; White cites recent Saudi activity in London as an example. "There are a lot of foreign investors eyeing the US, but they tend not to be the first movers," he says. He predicts that overseas buyers will be a major part of the recovery here, "but not the leading wave."
When RCA predicted a bottom on Friday, Bloomberg reported that the news was followed by an upturn in real estate-related stocks. CB Richard Ellis gained 8.4% for $9.81 per share, according to Bloomberg, while Apartment Investment & Management Co. closed the day 5.6% higher at $10.92 and Boston Properties rose 4.2% to $50.93. "I don't know if that's totally correlated to us, but for a service company like CBRE, it's very positive that things are only going to get better from here," says White.
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
