.jpg "The new way of viewing assets for real estate investors")
In the Netherlands where I am based, Savills have come up with innovative software tools and initiatives to tackle these limitations, and allow virtual viewings and site visits.
Reinier Wegman
One of the key challenges for real estate investors and tenants since the UK and Europe went into COVID-19 lockdown has been viewing assets before making an offer. Now, with many European countries starting to relax restrictions, we can see some light at the end of the tunnel and some early trends for future ways of conducting business.
In those countries further ahead of the curve, such as Germany, or those who never went into lockdown, such as Sweden, investors are able to view assets and, for example, meet at law firms’ offices, a key requirement in order to progress the necessary paperwork and complete due diligence. In the Netherlands we are currently still in 'intelligent lockdown', but compared to Spain or Italy we have a little more latitude to do business. The biggest challenge of all European investors is the local travel ban or at least the strict travel restrictions. The Dutch regulations are not the problem, but the rules that apply in countries such as Belgium, France or England, are. They cannot simply travel to the Netherlands for a viewing or a business appointment either because of government policy, personal reasons or company policy.
These can take the form of drones flying over an office building, a cameraman skating through a warehouse, taking a number of photos from different angles and assembling them in order to ‘walk‘ through a building, to one of our leasing agents conducting an asset viewing in Amsterdam’s Club Atelier for the landlord, tenant and advisors over live video conference. My team recently created a Virtual Tour of the ‘Monarch Tower’ in the Hague, allowing domestic and international investors to view the property. As we have all become more digitally savvy while working from home and speaking to clients over MS Teams, Skype or other platforms, this might be the future, especially for clients who are not based in the same city, let alone the same country as the asset.
Of course, for now, a face to face meeting or ‘live’ viewing of an asset cannot be replaced with anything we are able to do virtually. However, with many real estate investors having a large amount of capital to invest, those who make use of the viewing options currently available may well be ahead of the competition when it comes to putting in an offer.
From my discussions with clients and potential buyers, I am certainly getting the impression that there is still an appetite to acquire Dutch real estate. The temporary standstill already seems to pick up the pace again and as stock remains limited, the market will remain competitive and speed and out of the box thinking is essential for investors with an appetite for Dutch commercial real estate.
