Goodwin Procter held its 3rd Annual Real Estate Capital Markets Conference in New York City. The event, attended by more than 400 industry leaders, including investors, fund managers, lenders and investment bankers, featured panel discussions on public and private real estate capital markets as well as a keynote address by former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, Dr. Alice Rivlin.
Goodwin surveyed attendees at the event for insights into current market conditions, as well as industry trends and expectations.
Among the key findings:
- Nearly 50% of attendees cited continued systemic high employment as the most significant risk to near-term improvement in U.S. commercial real estate markets, followed by the continued credit crunch (21%), the scale of near-term debt maturities (20%) and tax policy changes (14%).
- Similarly, 36% believe job creation will be the most significant factor driving increased real estate values, ahead of committed funds anticipated to be invested (25%), continued improvement in the CMBS markets (19%) and continued supply constraints (15%).
- Over 75% of attendees expect private equity capital to outpace public equity in 2012. Less than half (43%) believe that private equity capital will outpace public equity this year.
- Residential and hotels were identified as the real estate sectors with the most growth potential, followed by infrastructure, medical office/healthcare, commercial/office, retail and industrial.
Full survey results are available here.