2025 Outlook: Global Real Estate Roundtable
In an environment characterized by change, our real estate debt and equity experts weigh in on the challenges and opportunities investors are likely to encounter across the global real estate markets in the year ahead.
John Ockerbloom: The new year will usher in a new administration in the U.S. How do you think this change will affect real estate markets?
Nasir Alamgir: The election is just behind us, so it’s still hard to determine how much of Donald Trump’s pre-election rhetoric will make it into policy. In North America, one big unknown is how much influence the executive branch will have over monetary policy going forward, although I would argue we will see more oversight. What that means for markets is hard to predict, but for a variety of reasons, I think we can expect to see greater inflationary pressure.
Deregulation—or a “lack of re-regulation”—also seems likely under Trump 2.0, and that is something that could ultimately help the broader capital markets. This is especially true with respect to banks and bringing liquidity back into the system to finance acquisitions and refinance deals, which would be healthy for real estate and the economy overall. A lack of re-regulation would likely also affect the way banks handle the non-performing loans they’re holding that are facing maturity. Specifically, banks may have the ability to push some of their troubled loans further out. At the end of the day, as we all know, banks are essential for the functioning of a real estate market, and they have been largely absent from the market for the last two years. So, that deregulation or lack of re-regulation will take many forms, but easing the capital for some of the troubled loans will be one of the essential ones.
Nick Pink: In Europe, the impact on real estate markets will depend heavily on the extent and specifics of Trump’s potential tariff moves. Most European-U.S. trade involves the service sector, which doesn’t appear to be the target of tariffs at this point. Rather, manufacturing seems to be more of the focus, which means countries like Germany could face increased economic challenges given its dominant automotive industry.
