Some of Canada’s most prominent commercial real estate players are tackling the challenge of COVID-19, asset class by asset class.

Commercial landlords may be looking differently at the mix of lease horizons in their buildings and across their portfolios than they did a few weeks ago.

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.

Market analysts foresee a varying degree of short-term and long-term impacts among real estate asset types, as well as supply chain interruptions that could slow activity at construction sites and in the booming distribution/warehouse sector.

Global and Canadian survey results suggest proptech is more piecemeal than strategically deployed in many cases, hindering the capacity to integrate data collection and interpretation.

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

That follows double-digit increases last year when Toronto was dubbed one of the "stand out performers" among major global cities, along with Boston and San Francisco.

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.

A new report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies explores the condition of rental housing stock, the demographics of tenant households, market dynamics and the erosion of affordability.

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.

Survey respondents foresee technology-enabled multifamily co-living will be the most significant disruptor to the status quo, while trends like office co-working, retail brandbox and industrial flex space cause upheaval in the other property sectors.

The recently completed $102-million deal for Toronto Don Valley Hotel & Suites heralds the development momentum attached to the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit line, now under construction across a 19-kilometre east-west stretch of the city.

Canada's major office and industrial markets present a more uneven picture to brokers and analysts in this country than their contemporaries in the United States see when contemplating 2020 prospects south of the border.

Analysts foresee relatively static office vacancy and rental rates over the coming year, while industrial market dynamics are expected to be similarly consistent and optimistic.

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.