"We are working on a lot of different aspects within the real estate market. We’re involved with audits and accounting of real estate and construction businesses, but we also work on real estate taxes, VAT and income, valuation and transactions, advising on structure, and due diligence. We also provide real estate strategy advice like advising industrial companies whether to own or rent their premises.
“Aside from that we work in the financing field with PPP solutions and other infrastructure work. We have a broad bunch of people on our team, about 300 in the Nordics, with 160 in Sweden, which is the biggest group.
First in the market place
“We started with this specialist group within Ernst & Young 12 years ago, so we were first in the market place, and that’s always a good place to be. Today we are the most integrated real estate specialist firm in the Nordics. We may not be the largest within each specialist field, but we do have the most full service offering.
High liquidity
“There has been a good stream of transactions in Sweden this year, with a lot of activity going on for the past 10 years. It’s pretty easy to carry out transactions there; we have very stable rules, very little red tape, it’s quite transparent and honest without any issues of corruption. And the liquidity of the real estate market is very high.
A good year ahead
“It’s going to be a good year for the real estate business in the Nordic region. Especially Sweden and Norway enjoy a good financial climate. A lot of international investors want to buy in the Nordics because of the good economic climate, but the sellers are also in good shape, so they may not be willing to agree on the price. So there is some uncertainty on whether there will be an increased level of transactions, though I do believe we will see that.
“Swedish investors are also returning abroad after a long absence, entering into the UK, Germany, and to some extent into France.”
