Global real estate at a turning point

Future trends will be a key theme for top executives from the world's property industry at the Reuters Real Estate Summit, which is being held in London, New York and Singapore on June 25-27.

A bullish mix of surging rents, cross-border investment, capital values, and shrinking or stable yields remains intact in many parts of the world, where the amount of capital chasing investment opportunities still exceeds the amount of physical stock available.

But worries over U.S. subprime mortgage loans and Spanish housing, tighter Chinese regulations, cancelled property company flotations, and weak debuts by British real estate investment trusts (REITs) suggests the market is at a turning point.

"This year is the same as last year and the year before because people expect property returns to remain strong but to then fall off sharply in the following year," Peter Hobbs, global head of real estate research at RREEF, part of Deutsche Bank and one of the world's biggest property fund managers.

"However, there are now more and more signs of that eventual sell-off, and the recent spike in bond yields increases the risk that the slowdown in property performance starts to occur before the end of the year," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Soaring prices in some Asian hotspots, such as major Indian and Chinese cities, have provoked fears risky bubbles are forming and price corrections are on their way. In China, the government is trying to cool the market with a raft of measures to deter speculation, including taxes and interest rate rises.

But in India, an influx of foreign funds has helped double property prices in Mumbai and New Delhi over the last two years.

Funds are becoming much more cautious and are increasingly eyeing up investment opportunities in distressed assets.

"There's not much room any more for further yield compression," said Robert Lie, chief executive of ING Real Estate in Asia. "What we're saying is you cannot just buy anything in any country, and assume values are going up."