Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2010 | Page 59

Pulse of the Industry Still Strong

Real Estate players rallied around
the flag in Aulanko
The Finnish real estate
professionals met in
Aulanko, Hämeenlinna,
with mixed feelings in
November. The headlines
of the past year have
emphasised the negative
with construction declining
and property transactions
being put on ice. The aim
of the Kiinko’s Annual
Convention of Property
Investment Prospects
was to rally the troops,
so to speak: to focus on
the positive messages, the
success stories, solutions
and innovations.

T

o help with this goal, the
organisers had enlisted the
help of couple of gurus: philosopher Esa Saarinen and Swedish professor, author Kjell Nordström. The pair did their best to
fire up the participants with
their often unorthodox thinkout-of-the-box ideas.
A more conventional look
was delivered by Sakari Tamminen, Chairman of the Board
for the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK as well as the
CEO of Rautaruukki. While
Tamminen assessed that the recession is far from over, he expressed a view that construction business might recover faster than many other industries –
globally, at least.

Schizophrenic
Situation
Some of the most precise international observations in the
convention were delivered by

Michael Schönach, Managing
Director of Catella Property.
Schönach offered an insightful
overview of the Finnish real estate market fundamentals and
trends. He called the current situation “schizophrenic” with the
(dropping) rents as the driving
factor in business premises investments, while it used to be
yields just a little while ago.
“Even 30% reductions in
rents are being negotiated now,”
he said, while adding that this
does not apply to prime real estate.
Still, the situation is not
as gloomy as it was with the recession of the early 90’s, where
speculative development led to
the eventual downfall of many a
real estate player. Now, there