Residential assets grab spotlight in private-equity real estate market: panel

Fiona Lam

Published Thu, Feb 17, 2022 · 09:17 AM

INVESTOR interest is heating up in the private equity residential real estate markets, as these assets will likely remain a calculated hedge against inflation and pandemic-related volatility, several industry participants said at a panel discussion this week.

The burgeoning demand also comes as many institutional investors - the likes of pension funds, insurance firms and sovereign wealth funds - are still well below their target allocations in real estate and hauling in record amounts of dry powder.

They are thus expected to grow their allocations to real estate in 2022, panellists said at the Feb 16 hybrid event organised by Singapore-based private equity firm Q Investment Partners (QIP).

JLL head of capital markets research for Asia-Pacific, Regina Lim, estimated that institutional investors in the region will need to spend another one-third of what they have pumped into real estate to reach those targets, even though their investments in the last 12 months were not insubstanti…