A crucial piece of the evidence required for valuations is the capitalisation rate – an industry metric akin to an investment yield.
“Looking forward, selling by private investors will likely lead to higher cap rates in order to reduce leverage or raise capital to redeem investors, in our view,” Citi’s Howard Penny and Suraj Nebhani wrote in a note this week.“One of the key debates in the market is to what extent these cap rates could move higher influencing valuations. We expect the next 12 months to be a key period for a higher cap rate.
But property sub-sectors such as industrial, self-storage, manufactured housing and some retail areas are growing net property income “which will likely buffer the valuation impacts of higher cap rates to varying degrees”, the Citi analysts wrote. The first substantial evidence of a correction in the office market came through the MSCI/Mercer Australia Core Wholesale Monthly Property Fund Index,That was driven by office fund returns – the largest sector in the MSCI index with $41 billion in assets – which recorded a negative 1.5 per cent total return during the final three months of last year, driven by a 2.4 per cent fall in capital growth.“Interest rate rises have really put the brakes on property values.