Investment Intelligence

The next competitive advantage in real estate may not be access to more data. It may be knowing which data deserves to influence a capital decision.

Fund managers have become adept at measuring exposure by geography, sector and risk. Yet the harder question remains: why does one asset merit millions in improvement works while another should be held, repositioned or sold? A convincing market forecast is no substitute for understanding what makes an individual property competitive.

The investment community is increasingly explicit about this distinction. In May, PGIM Real Estate co-heads Cathy Marcus and Raimondo Amabile observed that "returns dispersion is wide", making local insight and disciplined underwriting essential. UBS Asset Management's Larissa Belova captured the operational challenge in June: being data-driven is "easy to claim and hard to operationalise". And in July, PIMCO's Francois Trausch and colleagues urged investors to "stress test each asset's demand drivers".

For fund managers, this means looking beyond portfolio averages to interrogate the quality, resilience and capital requirements of individual holdings. For asset managers, it means establishing whether proposed expenditure will genuinely address the factors limiting performance and add value.

A refurbished entrance, improved circulation or reconfigured tenant mix might each make commercial sense. But which intervention creates the greatest value, at what cost, over what period - and with what downside if assumptions prove optimistic? The challenge is not simply gathering intelligence. It is converting that intelligence into a defensible investment thesis.

When entrusted with other people's capital, managers must be able to demonstrate not only what was decided, but why: which alternatives were considered, which assumptions were challenged and what evidence justified the commitment.

The most valuable dataset is therefore not necessarily the largest. It is the one that improves the decision.

An asset suffering from structural obsolescence requires a different response from one experiencing operational underperformance. Distinguishing between the two before committing capital is fundamental to preserving value, managing risk and meeting fiduciary responsibilities.

Applied consistently, this intelligence becomes relevant well beyond an individual refurbishment. It can influence acquisitions, portfolio strategy, capital expenditure and asset disposal decisions.

Better evidence may justify investing more. Equally, it may justify spending less. Both outcomes are hallmarks of responsible capital management.

At MAPIC, 2-4 November in Cannes, RQR is taking this debate directly to the market through a questionnaire which invites investors, owners, asset managers and occupiers to identify the characteristics that truly define a successful retail property.

Etienne Dupuy and Dan Innes will present the findings at MAPIC at 3pm on Wednesday 4 November 2026, in the "What makes retail premises successful?" session on the Industry Insights Stage, Riviera 7.

Because, ultimately, better property intelligence should lead to better investment decisions.