State of Play: Current Trends in APAC Private Real Estate Funds

• Japan and Australia are expected to be the most attractive markets for institutional investors
• The Living Sector remains popular but varies in form across different markets
• Private credit has seen a significant rise in popularity, with GPs and LPs both preferring to be lenders rather than borrowers in a high interest rate environment,
• With investors wanting greater control and transparency, GPs expected to move towards launching more bespoke products to satisfy investor demand

October 30, 2023 – Global law firm Goodwin, together with professional services firm KPMG in Singapore and IQ-EQ Fund Services (“IQ-EQ”) today announced the launch of its latest report, "State of Play: Current Trends in APAC Private Real Estate Funds" (“the report”). 

Drawing current insights from more than 40 senior professionals in the APAC private equity real estate industry, the report unveils several significant findings on the region's key trends and market dynamics.

“Like everyone in the industry the co-authors have seen the impact that global headwinds are having on the APAC real estate funds market. In the current climate both GPs and LPs are having to re-assess where and how they can find the best risk-adjusted returns and so we considered this to be a perfect time to canvas key industry players and take a snapshot of current thinking. The report findings are as wide-ranging as the APAC real estate market,” said Matthew Nortcliff, a partner at Goodwin and co-author of the report.

The majority of Limited Partners (LPs) and General Partners (GPs) surveyed concur that APAC was the most under-allocated-to region globally. This is attributed primarily to the resilience of developed markets in APAC. There was a perception amongst Asia-based real estate professionals that re-pricing of assets will occur sooner in Europe and North America than in APAC and that more capital would flow to those re-priced markets.

The report indicates that capital-raising for APAC real estate funds could be challenging at the moment. Whilst many LPs and GPs have still seen interest in APAC from selective pockets of European and North American investors, nearly half of them expect Asian investors to make up the largest capital base for their APAC mandates. Within that, Singaporean and Japanese investors were expected to comprise the lion’s share.

India, for many interviewees, had the ability to provide scalable emerging market exposure and there had been a clear uptick in appetite for Indian assets, particularly in the industrial sector.

Australia, Japan and Korea remain attractive to investors, with different sectors proving popular in each market.

Japan was by far a preferred jurisdiction amongst both GPs and LPs. With its ultra-low interest rates, the Japanese market was, for many, the Asian market in which they can still underwrite an investment on a conventional basis. The yen’s current weakness also offered a foreign exchange upside for overseas investors. Japan was one of the few markets in which offices and, to a lesser degree, the retail sector attracted positive comments and is the only APAC market that can point to a well-developed multi-family residential (MFR) sector.

The interest in residential is just as strong in Australia, though the market is very different, with build to rent (BTR) being the most widely discussed strategy. The Australian market was also deemed the “most culturally suited” in APAC for living sub-sectors such as student accommodation and senior living.

The report’s participants conveyed overwhelmingly strong long-term sentiment for Korea as a whole. Foreign investors in Korea expect to focus very heavily on the industrial sectors, with healthcare and offices also proving attractive to some.

Aside from Australia, Japan and Korea, Singapore was the one other APAC jurisdiction in which almost all GPs and LPs expressed some degree of interest in investing, although pricing is currently a challenge for most buyers.

Respondents were mostly taking a wait-and-see approach to investing in Southeast Asian real estate. Emerging market deals tend to be smaller and bring with them country-specific risks that can be hard for institutional players to justify unless there are outsized returns, which are not evident at the moment.

When discussing different sectors in the APAC real estate market, respondents showed an all- time high level of interest in private credit amid a backdrop of rising interest rates and conventional lenders becoming more conservative in their lending. Within APAC, private credit is likely to focus more on the Australian market, which is by far the most mature market in the region.

There has been a lot of global interest in fund secondary transactions in the year to date, but these do not appear to have gained the same level of traction in APAC real estate compared to other global markets. As and when there is more re-pricing in the region, we can expect secondary transaction volumes to increase.

When considering whether to invest, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) issues are on the radar for all market participants in APAC real estate. Attempts to harmonize ESG standards and reporting across APAC markets have posed some challenges for GPs, who are having to accommodate an ever-increasing list of LPs’ ESG requirements.

Find out more in the report here