Investors ‘doubling up’ on Aussie real estate

Speaking to Mortgage Business’ sister publication, InvestorDaily, Quay Global Investors principal and portfolio manager Chris Bedingfield said it is quite difficult for Australian investors to get access to assets that are not perfectly correlated with domestic equities.

Given that most Australian stock market investors are already invested in the local property market via their mortgage, they are probably “doubling up” on their Australian real estate exposure, Mr Bedingfield said.

However, he added he was certainly not trying to “talk anyone out of real estate”, which he believes to be a “terrific asset class”.

“[Real estate] is a great way to protect yourself from inflation and to preserve capital – if you buy it at the right price,” Mr Bedingfield said.

“It may feel counter-intuitive, but if you actually had a piece of Australian real estate in a global real estate fund, you’ve probably got more diversification than if you’ve just got Australian equities.

“For example, for the fund and the global real estate unhedged index, the correlation to the Australian share market is almost zero. So it’s a real diversification play.”

Mr Bedingfield set up Quay Global Investors with Justin Blaess in 2013, running an unhedged global listed real estate fund out of Sydney.

Bennelong Funds Management picked up the boutique fund manager in May 2015, and launched a retail version of the fund earlier this year.

The Quay fund currently has around $5 million in funds under management, and Mr Bedingfield said he will be “very disappointed” if the fund is not sitting at $50 million by the end of 2016.

[Related: Investors own half of all Australian apartments]