Mark Rose, the principal, chair and chief executive of brokerage Avison Young, spoke to Chanté Bohitige, senior reporter at CoStar News, and Luc-Etienne Rouillard Lafond of sister publication Business Immo, at the Mipim conference in Cannes.
First of all, he said the real estate market has "absolutely" entered a new cycle, adding: "Cycles take some time and on cue we are starting 2026 at the beginning of a recovery.
"We are not recovered, but we are starting at the beginning of the recovery and we've already passed through the door."
"Now, we still will be tied to debt availability and that's what we were missing over the last say three years."
"And we could do without a few of the wars right now, but we are making our way to a firm recovery in that part of the cycle."
Asked about the recent drop in brokerage share prices in February over artificial intelligence fears: "And I want to remind everybody that that was a sophisticated short that then led to a tonne of program trading. And when you are not equipped to get the facts out fast enough, you can see what happened, 20% drops in two days absolutely made no sense whatsoever.
"And here's why. Artificial intelligence is our friend. Our friend. It is not a problem at all moving the efficiency of collecting data, which is really where artificial intelligence comes into play. Being able to collect data faster and cheaper. We are all in favour of that. Making it less expensive is a good thing."
To find out what else Rose said about artificial intelligence, the impact of geopolitics and uncertainty on real estate and the changing dynamics of a post-COVID, post-debt crisis cycle.