Nordic Real Estate Conference

The post-pandemic landscape for commercial real estate

Grand Hôtel, Stockholm, Sweden

Please note, the main spoken language will be Swedish. The sessions below marked with an asterisk (*) will be held in English.

The pandemic has accelerated the shift to remote working and e-commerce, and restructured the commercial real estate (CRE) market, creating winners and losers. Logistics and warehouse properties, and residential and public service real estate have been the big winners. Retail is a long-term loser and hotel properties a short-term loser. The office sector contains both winners and losers.
We expect environmentally friendly prime offices in vibrant, large cities to be more resilient to the working-from home- trend than those of secondary quality in secondary locations. Still, transactions are very strong (though vacancies are increasing in most areas), rents are mostly stable and yields continue to tighten.
Will the pandemic mark the beginning of the end of the current real estate cycle? Should real estate companies prepare for an inevitable cooling in sector conditions?

  • The ultra-loose monetary response to the pandemic continues to support property valuations and investment markets. The pandemic’s impact on the Nordic real estate companies rated by Moody’s has been barely visible to date. Companies may emerge from the pandemic largely unscathed. How prepared are they for the post-pandemic era and how do we assess the outlook for the real estate sector’s credit quality? What are the greatest risks?
  • With GDP in Nordic countries recovering quickly, what is the likelihood of interest rate rises and potentially higher than expected inflation? The CRE market is strong, but for how long? How advanced are Nordic real estate companies in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures, as climate change and corporate governance increase in importance?
  • Finally, how vulnerable is the Swedish bond market when it comes to liquidity and how important is it to financial stability? The Riksbank has begun to buy corporate bonds, but will this be enough to ensure sufficient liquidity in the secondary market if investor sentiment sours?