International Real Estate Strategies and Deal Negotiation

Globalization has made our world smaller, and every day more real estate professionals choose to broaden their business by adding international scope. To do this successfully, we need to build solid investment strategies based on different factors, which are distinct for each new location. We need to understand the real estate cycle – what its drivers are, the difference between physical and financial cycles, and the factors that drive other investors to enter or exit a particular market. From there, we will explore how to take advantage of both expansions and recessions, how to prepare our projects for the next cycle, and how to anticipate and outmaneuver competitors.

We will also address how to assess, measure, and mitigate the risks we would face in specific countries and markets. Different markets worldwide have different profiles, which we’ll explore in detail: we will analyze the US market, a mature with a growing population and transparent economy; the European market, a mature but with a shrinking population and more rigid structure; and emerging markets such as Asia and Latin America which are less mature with great potential for development in the near future, albeit with significant risks.

Externalities affect these markets differently, and each has unique perils, including market transparency and corruption, governmental intervention, inflation, currency exchange risks, political and economic risks, interest rate fluctuations, demographic changes, and so on. As real estate practitioners we need to understand all these “ingredients” to design and implement the right project for a particular market.

In the second part of the program, we will address best practices for negotiating international details, including different negotiation tactics and strategies, common mistakes, understanding your counterparty’s position and Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), and the unique challenges that cross-border negotiations pose. We will learn about the three layers of negotiation: the rational, the emotional, and identity levels. The participants will engage in several interactive negotiation exercises where they will be able to practice new tools.