August 2008 - No substitute for experience
Date: 13/08/2008
Generation Y (‘Gen Y’) will, for the first time in their professional and personal lives, experience fallout from an economy that is slowing. A rude awakening is likely for a great number of twenty-somethings that have until now exemplified those traits that have stereotyped a generation as materialistic, job-hopping spend-aholics. The Peter-Pan generation may now have to finally grow up and in doing so seize the opportunities brought about by these troubled times. The tendency for history to repeat itself should provide sufficient motivation for Gen Y to be paying close attention to property, sharemarket and workplace developments.

July 2008 - Timing is everything
Date: 11/07/2008
While recent years have seen the rise and rise of openended funds within the unlisted retail sector which is now approaching $17 billion in assets under management, fixed-term syndicates had previously been the vehicle of choice as the industry climbed out of the hole it fell into in the early nineties. Now approaching the later part of the decade, many syndicates that were established prior to the popularity of open-ended funds are approaching expiry. Maturity estimates by PIR indicate syndicates with total portfolio values of $1.5 billion are due to mature in 2008 increasing up to $2.5 billion in 2010, the peak year.

June 2008 - Thin pickings
Date: 17/06/2008
While the maelstrom in many segments of investment markets continues to make its presence felt, the prospect of losses and write downs has, for the main part, been monopolising the headlines. However it is the less visible effects of these and other events to which investors should turn their thoughts as part of the bigger picture.

May 2008 - Pest Control
Date: 12/05/2008
Investment and financial markets are at an interesting point as we march resolutely toward the end of a financial year that has proven to be a trial by fire and interesting to say the least, particularly to anyone born after about 1980. Many investors have barricaded themselves into any available safe haven that catches their eye. With the financial hurricane of short selling, panic selling, trading halts, CDOs, toxic loans, margin loans and everything looking just plain marginal, many people are keen to dive into whatever passing lifeboat they can hail.

April 2008 - Mortgage Madness
Date: 09/04/2008
Well, for the moment the market commentators are locked in heated debate as to whether Australian financial markets are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel or the headlights of an oncoming train (although the fact that said commentators are even venturing the opinion that we are at the bottom of the crash is a definite improvement). While there is a small amount of confidence starting to return to many areas of the broader market, much of this still needs further illumination of the current status, which, in unlisted property at least, will require the presence of FY08 financial reports before we can start to get a clearer picture of what is actually happening. In light of this, I thought we would move away from focusing on the unlisted equity based property investments for this edition and have a look at what’s happening in the world of property backed debt funds.

March 2008 - Chaos Theory
Date: 18/03/2008
Last month the PIR Unlisted monthly editorial (February edition of the PIR Investment Monitor) focused on the turmoil sweeping through securitised property markets and the issues relating to these tumultuous times. Since last month's editorial, the ASX/LPT 200 Property Index has fallen another 6.9%, with more savage price falls in those A-REITs perceived by the market to be carrying the most risk (the five heaviest causalities between 29 January and 29 February averaged price falls of 45%).

February 2008 - An Imperfect Storm
Date: 14/02/2008
The start to the 2008 working year has certainly been an inauspicious one as the share market went into a tailspin and the bears, if not technically on the scene yet as at the day of writing, look poised to enter stage left. The listed property market, the newly christened A-REITs, have been copping it in the neck as analysts and investors go hunting for the dreaded "D" word amidst the credit crisis and give anyone showing suspect debt a savaging.

December 2007 - Bookies Corner
Date: 08/01/2008
Welcome to our last editorial in this, the final edition of the PIR Investment Monitor for 2007. Since our column won't appear again until February, while many of us here at PIR as well as our readers take some much needed time off, I thought we would take the time to make some predictions about what we can expect to see in 2008 after we've all worked off our unwanted holiday kilos.

November 2007 - Who’s picking up the bill?
Date: 09/11/2007
Following on from last month's editorial, the separation of investor expectations of returns and that now widely obtainable from direct property, the three common yield inflating approaches, the return of capital, the manipulation of fee payment (through deferment or unit acquisition) and the consequences of gearing within an environment of tightening yields and rising interest rates are discussed below with the assistance of the entirely fictional Trust XYZ.

October 2007- Between a rock and a hard place
Date: 11/10/2007
The widening disconnect between investor expectations of yields and that presently possible from direct property funds has fostered an increasing prevalence and variety of means which fund managers bolster unitholder distributions. As the industry has been slowly but steadily dragged down the road of yield compression (whilst reaping the benefits of capital growth), investor attitudes have tended to follow at a much slower pace.

September 2007 - Research, ratings and disclosure - will it be enough?
Date: 13/09/2007
Late August saw the release of ASIC's Consultation Paper 89 on unlisted, unrated debentures - improving disclosure for retail investors. This paper outlines the proposed issues in which ASIC seeks to improve the mandatory disclosure of unlisted debentures and invites commentary from the public and industry groups on the paper as part of their 'three point plan' to address a sector in which risks are becoming a manifest as corporate collapses in an investment climate increasingly focused on debt market liquidity is becoming increasingly risky in the current climate.

August 2007 - Short cuts make long delays
Date: 16/08/2007
In the wide range of available opportunities open to investors in the property funds industry, property development is an often overlooked corner, more suitable to either small private dealings or a corporatised structure.

July 2007 - Open for Business
Date: 10/07/2007
In the unlisted property trust arena, it seems that fund managers and investors alike have taken to the open-ended structure, increasingly eager to keep the door ajar for returns and fees to flow just a little more freely. Over the last five years, the proliferation of the unlisted open-ended trust has been impressive at the least, to the point where open-endeds now comprise over 41% of the unlisted retail property fund sector by value.