Real Estate Investment firms are starting to come up with different ways on how to earn profit given the current economic situation in Chile.
The first rental apartments in the country have been developed by Prudential Real Estate Investors, which is active in Chile's market since 2007. Mortgage loans for investors in Chile's starting multifamily business are being offered by MetLife, Inc. which entered the country by purchasing the country's insurance unit from Santander Central Hispano in 2001. Meanwhile, BTG Pactual Chile, a unit of Brazil's leading investment bank, is looking on geographic expansion to Peru and Colombia.
According to Carlos Saieh, head of merchant banking of BTG Pactual Chile, "If you look at the ratio of office space to population in Santiago, Lima and Colombia, you'll see that we're very underpenetrated."
These developments serve as an introduction to the country's new generation of real estate industry's investors that come out over the past twenty years. Chile's real estate history shows how much has changed in the industry. Before, the Santiago office market was like any other South American cities where most buildings are owned by different investors who owned different floors or individual suites. Big companies are generally turned for multiple owners can cause multiple conflicts. However, in the late 1990s, individual firms started to own a whole building, anticipating international investors who will be needing office spaces for their own business.
The first tower to be developed by a single investor was a 16- story tower finished in 1999 at Sao Paulo Brazil, called the Birmann. The tower, designed by Owings & Merill, has attracted prestigious companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett- Packard Co. to lease on the office building. It was later sold to Union Investment Real Estate of Germany for $65 million in 2006.
The Birmann tower started a new era for real estate industry and for the next 20 years, Chile's real estate industry prospered and the new generation of investors are repeating the country's history by coming up of new strategies on the real estate industry.
