A survey of institutional investors’ attitudes and perceptions of residential property: the Swiss, Dutch and Swedish cases

This paper provides evidence about institutional investors' attitudes and perceptions of residential property as an investment asset group in three European countries (Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden). These countries stand out, with an extraordinarily large institutional residential ownership, in fact, residential institutional allocation represents about 6%, 2% and 3% of the total institutional investment in the Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden respectively. Housing is the most important institutional property asset type in Switzerland and the Netherlands, comprising over 52% and 50% of their institutional property portfolios respectively. ln Sweden residential property plays an important, but not dominant role in the domestic institutional property portfolios, representing about 21 % of the institutional property holdings. Using a postal survey of representatives of pension funds, insurance companies, property investment and asset management companies the study analyses the attractiveness of residential property in terms of institutional investment goals. The survey examines the institutional investors' perceptions of housing investment, namely with respect to its returns, volatility, inflation hedging, liabilities matching and correlation with shares, bonds and non-residenfial property. Additionally, the survey looks at the institutional investors' experiences regarding the private rented sector.