Good morning, per Lisa Abramowicz, a record amount of stimulus is about to be withdrawn from the global economy, between May 2022 to May 2023.
And as a result, Morgan Stanley economists expect G4 central bank balance sheets to shrink by USD2 trillion, 4X the largest 12-month decline ever.
Trying to make ends meet, hustling, taking more antacids but getting by, are phrases which will continue to define the new normal.
Are we going back to the pre-Covid days anytime soon? Perhaps tea leaves can tell.
🚴♀️🍎✅
5 Questions On Retail Real Estate, Answered.
Not all real estate is constructed equal, so while industrial and housing performed well through the pandemic, retail real estate groped around unsuccessfully in the dark, looking for brands to lease new stores to.
However, this is 2022 and somethings have changed.
Here are 5 answers to help you gauge the new direction.
1️⃣ Is Retail Leasing Picking Up? Per experts, the retail real estate pipeline is robust and leasing is way healthier than it was last fiscal. The retail sector went through some tough years. There was the retail apocalypse and then COVID, but strong shopping centres/malls and retailers are thriving now.
2️⃣ Are Retail Brands Optimistic? Yes. Leasing tea leaf readers report many of them saying, ‘We want to expand, so keep us in mind when you are buying new centres.’ It’s as good a time as ever to buy retail vacancy.
3️⃣ Omicron And Other Risks? Industry experts feel that Omicron, inflation and the upcoming interest rate hike are risks that are being factored in by investors while making decisions but overall, the economy is recovering. Plus, the boost in government expenditure will help mitigate some of the risk posed by above factors.
4️⃣ The Best Place To Invest In Retail Real Estate - If strong shopping malls are open to investments, write out that check. Else, look at retail centres in Tier - II and III cities, located in a flood proof area that is close to high schools and colleges, say seasoned investors.
5️⃣ COVID And Retail Real Estate Rebound? If you examine grocery-anchored shopping malls, where essential retailers thrived during the pandemic, they are now at pre-COVID business levels or better. Good retail is good retail, and COVID accelerated the demise of bad retail.
Housing Is High On The Institutional Investor's List
A mix of factors like record-low interest rates, pandemic-driven realisation of the need for home ownership, real estate developer incentives, and increased buyer confidence, is acting like a money magnet for the residential sector, pet ET.
Not convinced?
Well, reports say that in 2021, the residential sector got 2.3X more investment rupees than it did in 2020.
📈 That's USD1.08 billion, compared to USD460 million in 2020.
Another Landmark For Trains To Roll On
Train journeys are cool and railway tracks are like arteries, connecting our colourful country as they snake through forests and over rivers.
Arun's tweet about this soon-to-be-opened railway bridge caught our attention:
🎙 Sharing some pics of Railway Bridge on Chenab in Reasi district in Jammu. Indeed an engineering marvel.
For more images of this jaw dropping scenery, cross over here.
Is Buying Virtual Land A Crazy Idea?
With the metaverse taking centre stage, virtual real estate seems to be the next big thing but is it just a fad? A hype that is going to pop like a soap bubble in the bath sooner or later?
There's A Tangible Shift
When celebrities like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, the Weeknd, and Travis Scott held live, digital concert performances in the metaverse, they attracted hordes of fans, and bus loads of investors too.
Those investors are now buying virtual real estate like online fashion ramps, concert venues, shopping malls, and other types of “property”—in the metaverses.
Thanks to the interest garnered by Zuckerberg and other well-known celebrities, the metaverse’s global market, per Grayscale, is expected to soon reach a value of USD1 trillion.
Zooming In
While more and more folks are entering the metaverse to watch concerts, share experiences, gamble, shop and conduct business, space in the metaverse is limited. Decentraland only offers a max of 90,000 “parcels” of digital land.
Per this report, it’s inevitable that the metaverse will be the #1 social network in the world someday soon. Add limited real estate supply to that and the cloud over your investment strategy may begin to clear rapidly.
Zooming Out
Imagine if you came to Mumbai when it was farmland, and you had the option to buy a block of South Mumbai (SoBo). If someone wants to buy a block of real estate in SoBo today, it’s priceless, it’s not on the market.
That same experience is going to happen in the metaverse, feel early adopters.
Way Ahead
The metaverse's appeal and future potential are precisely why investors are taking virtual real estate, cryptocurrency, and NFT collectibles so seriously.
And, as the metaverse continues to be normalized in our everyday reality, the divide between the real world and the metaverse continues to dissolve, merging the two into one single reality, now referred to as the omniverse.
🤯
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Around these dates back in 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated chess grandmaster and world champion Garry Kasparov for the first time, in the initial game of their first match.
Folks say Kasparov was “devastated” by the loss, and left the building without talking to reporters. He went on to win that first match, but ultimately lost a second match to the supercomputer in 1997.
The metaverse is arriving. Just like computers did. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai