Auckland, July – Through eleven editions of the Global Real Estate Transparency Index spanning over two decades, JLL have created what
is today the industry’s most widely used and, we trust, highly valued benchmark for assessing real estate transparency.
The 2020 Index is launched at a time of massive economic and societal disruption. As governments, businesses and
communities grapple with the impacts of COVID-19, the pandemic has brought the issues of transparency and trust into
even sharper focus. During times of such uncertainty, the need for transparent processes and accurate, timely data
becomes more important than ever.
Our latest survey of 99 countries and territories reveals that New Zealand continues to punch well above its weight, led
by a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility and wider adoption of new technologies.
New Zealand and Australia are the only countries from Asia Pacific in the top 10, which includes the United Kingdom, the
United States, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, and Germany.
However, globally the slowest rate of improvement was observed since the period directly following the Global Financial
Crisis.
According to JLL, pressure exists from investors, businesses and consumers to further improve real estate transparency
to compete with other asset classes and meet heightened expectations about the industry’s role in providing a
sustainable and resilient built environment in the age of COVID-19.
Furthermore, innovative new property technology (Proptech) is changing how real estate data is gathered and analysed and
influencing industry transparency at a regulatory level.
“While investment into commercial real estate has inevitably paused during the pandemic, the overarching trend toward
rising allocations to this asset class will continue. As investors look to allocate more capital into Asia Pacific real
estate, transparency becomes fundamentally more important, as will the enforcement of robust regulatory frameworks,”
says Roddy Allan, Chief Research Officer, Asia Pacific, JLL.
In both New Zealand across the globe, JLL’s research concludes that sustainability commitments have become the biggest
single driver of real estate transparency globally since 2018. An increased focus on corporate social responsibility and
acknowledgement of the need to create sustainable buildings bring environment, social and governance (ESG)
considerations into the mainstream.
Although real estate markets have historically faced challenges when implementing new technology, the COVID-19 pandemic
is leading to an acceleration in new types of non-standard and high-frequency data – especially relating to health,
mobility and space usage – being collected and disseminated in near-real-time.
“The fast-tracking of sustainability initiatives and wider-spread adoption of technology aids to business, including
Proptech, underlines that transparency gains will be driven by both an evolving regulatory landscape and the collective
actions for New Zealand. Spurred by the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will become crucial for the real estate
industry to work more collaboratively with governments and civil society to achieve greater transparency and meet the
changing expectations of investors,” says Paul Winstanley, Head of Research and Consultancy, New Zealand, JLL.