Brookfield: “We are at an inflection point when it comes to real estate opportunities today.”
Brookfield: “We are at an inflection point when it comes to real estate opportunities today.”
Lowell Baron, CIO, Real Estate at Brookfield, made the remarks at the Israel Private Markets Summit in Tel Aviv.
“This is an extremely favorable and unique time for opportunistic real estate investing,” said Lowell Baron. “High-quality real estate is performing well. All this equates to the most attractive time to invest in real estate in over 10 years.”
Baron is President and Chief Investment Officer of Brookfield's Real Estate Group, responsible for Brookfield's global real estate investment and asset management activities. He has held several senior roles across the organization since joining in 2005, including overseeing the growth into alternative real estate sectors. Talking at the Israel Private Markets Summit, Baron outlined why now is a strong time to invest in real estate opportunities and where to find value in turbulent times.
Notably, the steps investors need to take surrounding real estate and what can be done to see the best return on investment. “Real estate is no longer just a financial instrument - the reality of the business, given higher interest rates and inflation, is about operations and how to manage your real estate to create value,” he added. “The groups who will be successful will be those who have the teams to manage real estate.”
Some of the ways that can be achieved, according to Baron, are to fully embrace digitalization and AI adoption, acknowledge deglobalization, and accept that many demographic groups will remain in the rental bracket since homeownership today “is out of reach for most people.”
The Israel Private Markets Summit saw C-level and decision-makers of GPs and LPs meet to discuss market trends in real estate, private equity, venture capital, private debt, and infrastructure. It was hosted at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Tel Aviv.
This year, the summit emphasized LP professionals in fields including alternative investment managers, CIOs, and investment committee members from institutional investors, insurance companies, pension funds, provident funds, sectorial funds, family offices, HNWI, bank nostro managers, endowments, universities, and kibbutzim. It included speakers from Brookfield, Apollo, and Permira, and was co-sponsored by Jefferies and Clifford Chance.
According to Baron, the investing environment today is the best it's been since 2009. “We’ve invested nearly nothing in 2022 and 2023 but in the first 6 months of 2024, we’ve invested billions. You don’t have to bet on interest rates going down,” he concluded. “My message is this: We are at an inflection point when it comes to real estate opportunities today.”
Brookfield was founded in 1899 as a company in the field of infrastructure and real estate. Over the years has become one of the leading firms in the sector and its investments focus on assets in real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy, private equity, private debt, and financial products. The firm manages $925 billion in assets under management, with $267 billion of capital managed dedicated to real estate.
