Next Refi Wave No Cause for Alarm

There'll be more maturities over the next four years than the past four. But are we heading for a black hole? These power players don't think so. (You can stay out of the panic room for now, unless you like rehydrated beef.) We snapped Cantor Commercial Real Estate CEO Anthony Orso and Deutsche Bank Securities global head of commercial real estate Jonathan Pollack last week at NYU Schack Institute's 46th annual capital markets conference in Manhattan, where Jonathan said that the upcoming cycle of maturities will have more capital and credit availability than the last. Anthony adds that assets that can't be refinanced can probably be sold above debt. Goldman Sachs co-head of mortgage trading David Lehman, who also spoke, estimated two-thirds will have the ability to refi.

When investing abroad, you can't look always at the short term. We're talking a 25-year horizon, like the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which is investing $3B to $4B in real estate annually across 14 countries. We snapped its Americas head of real estate investment Peter Ballon with fellow Canadian, Oxford Properties Group SVP of investments Andrew Trickett. Peter's a strong believer in Brazil for the long-term (CPPIB has spent $1.5B there over the past three years, repping some of its biggest investments). The company also believes it must invest in China and India with that horizon in mind. (Hope they're prepared for some spicy food.)