ULI Turkey’s members met on 9th December to discuss Europe’s real estate capital markets. The event started with introductions from the Chairman of ULI Turkey’s National Council, Haluk Sur and the Director of the Building Industry Center (YEM), Banu Ucak. Both spoke about the collaboration of ULI Turkey and YEM in delivering networking and learning opportunities for real estate and development professionals in the city of Istanbul.

After welcoming speeches, Joe Montgomery, CEO, ULI Europe, took to the floor to provide background on on ULI, its recent accomplishments, and the programme of activities for 2014.

The keynote speaker Professor Andy Baum, Professor of Land Management at the Henley Business School (University of Reading), Honorary Professor of Real Estate Investment at the University of Cambridge and ULI Europe’s Visiting Fellow on Capital Markets, presented on the topic: European real estate capital markets – who is raising money, for what, and from whom?

In his speech Prof. Baum presented data on global and European real estate capital markets focused on the core and opportunistic funds, and answered the questions on who is investing and how does Turkey fit into this wider picture? He stressed that Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, is seen as one of the most attractive real estate markets, and has great potential, but the performance to date is poor. Prof. Baum sees the reasons behind this poor performance as loose supply, fairly high risk, unattractive price levels, along with not being present in investors’  current strategies.

The event was followed by a networking session where members were given the opportunity to meet with Professor Baum and Joe Montgomery to discuss the issues on a more personal level.