Livingston Sees European Asset-Sale Trend Heading for US

ORLANDO-The good times of American investors picking up trophy real estate assets at high yields from European public companies and government firms are slowly evaporating, says George L. Livingston, founder/president of locally based Realvest Partners Inc. Most of the big deals are done.

“We have been seeing increased US investment activity overseas as European public companies and government companies sell their real estate assets to opportunistic investors to clean their balance sheets,” Livingston tells GlobeSt.com. “The easy picking (however) may be over already in Europe,” the developer says, but “expect the trend to move to America.”

European corporations and governments own “a much higher percentage of their properties than do their US counterparts,” the developer says. As a result, the transactions tend to be large, $1 billion or more. Most of those deals are gone, he says.