From managing climate risk to advances in analytics, 2020 may be a watershed year for real estate. Read our top five emerging trends likely to be front of mind for global real estate investors in 2020 and beyond

We highlight five trends we believe will unfold over 2020: Climate change innovators: spotting the sleeping giants; new terms for capital: ready or not, here comes ESG; Re-valuing real estate: investing in the eye of the hurricane; the new human capital paradox: Juggling layoffs and shortages; and keeping score on stakeholder capitalism: looking for accountability in all the new places.

Property investors who invest across a broad region, like Europe, can use a peer-group benchmark to gauge relative performance. But to determine the specific drivers of returns, detailed asset-level performance attribution can help shed light.

For 21 years, MSCI and BNP Paribas Real Estate have assessed the robustness of income from commercial real estate. This research focuses on new leasing trends and the effect on income when a lease event, such as a break or expiry, occurs.

The opacity of real estate markets and the wide spectrum of potential outcomes makes it hard to understand performance. Running a historical “what if” analysis may help institutional investors understand how different choices could have impacted outcomes.

As a long-term asset class, private real estate is especially vulnerable to climate-related events, such as water stress, hurricanes and flooding.

Real estate has always been marked by periods of expansion and sometimes painful corrections. But all cycles are not alike.