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Thursday, 21 October 2021
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Alternative real estate sectors are growing in importance as their uniqueness and quality are appreciated. Australian investors are finally recalibrating their portfolios and there is a long runway from here.
Globally, demand for quality industrial property has driven the strongest period of growth the commercial logistics sector has experienced in many years, but what's happening with office and retail sectors?
Employees value WFH flexibility but they also enjoy and benefit from the office environment. Businesses will need to adapt but tenants say office work remains essential for productivity, culture, risk and driving innovation.
Many listed property stocks were hard hit by COVID, especially in retail, but foot traffic outside Victoria has held up relatively well. Some sectors are now good value for the recovery and less working from home.
Although most office workers are currently WFH, an energy and a buzz comes from working in the same physical space. Other benefits include team building, relationships, talent mentoring and creative collaboration.
Property funds are finding new assets in companies making better capital management decisions by selling their properties and leasing them back. It also gives investors strong long-term returns.
An important part of the economics of property investment is claiming tax deductions for depreciation of plant, equipment and buildings, and a qualified expert should perform the assessment.
With a vast array of property choices across retail, industrial, office and commercial, where does the head of one of Australia's largest property managers see the best opportunities, and where are the warnings?
Melbourne and Sydney rank well among Asian commercial property markets, with relatively high yields, constrained supply and changing use of industrial property driving demand.
If retailers and shopping centres are to survive the online onslaught, they need to return to Victor Gruen’s original vision of malls as community centres, rather than focussing only on sales and consumerism.
With a high rate of adoption of the internet globally and the large growth in cloud computing, network-dense data centres are well placed to generate long-term returns.
Direct investment in a commercial property often comes with unique risks not associated with a diversified portfolio, such as the exposure to a single tenant and special lease conditions.
The RBA Governor says rising house prices are due to "the design of our taxation and social security systems". The OECD says "the prolonged boom in house prices has inflated the wealth of many pensioners without impacting their pension eligibility." What's your view?
We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
The survey drew a fantastic 2,000 responses with over 1,000 comments and polar opposite views on what is good policy. Do most people believe the home should be in the age pension asset test, and what do they say?
Any policy decision needs to recognise who is affected by a change. It pays to check the data on who pays taxes, who owns assets and who earns the income to ensure an equitable and efficient outcome.
With articles on the pensions assets test read about 40,000 times, 3,500 survey responses and thousands of comments, there was a lot of great reader participation. A few comments added extra insights.
It is hard to think of any area of widespread public concern where the same policies have been pursued for so long, in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that they have failed to achieve their objectives.