REALPAC’s recent survey of 15 Canadian open-end real estate funds offers insight into when and why fund administrators would suspend the ability for investors to redeem their holdings.

Venture 50 accolades are awarded based on three equally weighted criteria for one-year gains in share price, trading volume and market capitalization.

Technically, three real estate entities are ranked in the 2020 Clean200 list of publicly traded companies, but just two of them have conventional commercial real estate portfolios.

Multifamily assets delivered the lowest income return of the property sectors to institutional investors in the Canada Property Index last year, but produced strong total returns on a foundation of 7.3 per cent capital growth.

A 6.65 per cent average total return on the Canada Property Index's 2,723 directly held standing assets, scattered across eight major markets, cloaks significant variances between property sectors and from market to market.

Prominent Canadian asset managers recently recounted their experiences in repositioning underperforming properties, offering insight on turnaround logistics and the role value-add assets play in investment strategies.

Yorkdale Shopping Centre again takes the title of Canada's most productive mall in the Retail Council of Canada's annual analysis of shopping centres with more than 250,000 square feet of gross leasable area.

The defining features of open-end real estate funds are well matched to investors with long-term needs for stable, predictable returns, as seen in the largely institutional mix reported in the survey.

Market pressure and industry competitiveness could propel accessible commercial real estate in the coming decade, much the way those complementary forces have already bolstered energy efficiency and low-carbon footprints.

A widening scope of resources can be tapped to build increasingly sophisticated risk profiles, but sustainability practitioners note that data is often fragmented and difficult to obtain.

The mounting consequences of being stuck fast in the wrong place for an extended wrong time begin with soaring insurance premiums and end with stranded assets.

Major Canadian players figure among both GRESB investor members with full access to the data and the larger complement of management members that report and are benchmarked through the real estate assessment.

Energy firms drove Calgary office leasing deals in the first quarter of 2019, but in a way that had few landlords celebrating. The largest transactions involved companies relocating and downsizing into smaller spaces.

ESG provides a framework to set priorities, steer action and monitor progress toward more resilient assets, with 93 per cent of respondents reporting that criteria linked to sustainability, supporting local communities and shunning corruption influence their investment decisions.

A surging industrial sector helped to counterbalance slipping retail values and push up 2018 investment returns on Canadian commercial real estate.

Canada's Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance suggests there is more untapped opportunity than coordinated action in a market grappling with emerging imperatives for climate-related financial disclosure and integrating ESG measures.

Senior ranking valuation specialists agreed that new uncertainties around fraying trade agreements, political instability and climate volatility have broadened the scope of their worries well beyond rising interest rates.