Last year the high prices demanded of property investors in the world’s “super cities” of London, New York, Tokyo and Paris drove global fund managers towards a second rung of merely excellent cities such as Berlin, Beijing and Seattle.
Commercial property investment leapt 65 per cent to $30bn in this group of lower-tier destinations. By contrast total spending in 2015 across the world’s top four super cities fell by 10 per cent to $128bn compared with the previous year, according to latest figures from JLL, the international property agency.
Though super cities may command the weight of investment in commercial real estate, they do not necessarily all offer the best returns. Anticipating swings in returns available across the many dozens of less obvious and unfashionable urban destinations is also part of the task faced by an elite group of global fund managers. It is relatively easy to identify a solid core of favoured locations in the US and Europe. Delivering a shopping list of winning locations to property investors has become more challenging in Asia, however, as regional economic uncertainty has risen.