Unlisted property on the rise
Unlisted property trusts are going to grow enormously in the next few years as investors seek pure property plays and lower volatility, according to Australian Unity Investments head of property Martin Hession.
Hession said that for the year 2006-07, unlisted property trusts acquired almost as much Australian property as that of listed property trusts (LPTs).
“I think this will increase even more in the next 12 months and [unlisted property will] even outperform LPTs,” he said.
In comparing LPTs to their unlisted counterparts, Hession argued that due to exposure to offshore investments and property developments, construction and management, LPTs no longer provided pure property exposure.
“LPTs are quite clearly just another industrial economy and are no longer a proxy for property investment, which advisers are coming to realise now,” he said.
“The only way to get pure property exposure is by investment in unlisted property.”
Another benefit of investing in unlisted property, according to Hession, is that equity market volatility and risk can be avoided, as a lot of the factors that affect equity markets, such as investor sentiment and general economic news, do not change the valuation of the assets in unlisted property.
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