The real estate industry must accept its “proper share of the blame” leading to the global economic recession and the housing and commercial property decline, says Urban Land Institute Chairman Jeremy Newsum.
“There were many keys to this bomb, and we held one,” said Newsum at ULI’s 2010 Fall Meeting in Washington recently. “The fact is, we (real estate industry professionals) lost control of the agenda.
“Real estate is about buildings and the people who occupy them, collectively forming an urban community,” he said. “Real estate is not primarily about money, and we should not have allowed real estate to become just another playground for financial engineers.” According to Newsum, the “new normal” for the industry is one that is focused on the operators – the creators and owners of real estate who view their businesses as a long-term investment. The “old abnormal” was real estate being the “puppet of finance,” he said, with real estate viewed more as an investment opportunity than a building for occupation.