Echoes: Be humble in the face of uncertainty

AEW’s Christina Ofschonka recalls what it was like to begin her journey in real estate investment just before the GFC, and why growth requires patience, the ability to act quickly amidst ambiguity, and recognising that decisions inevitably involve the risk of mistakes.

You began your real estate career in 2006, just before the Global Financial Crisis [GFC]. What did those early days reveal about the industry – and market cycles?

Christina Ofschonka (CO): Starting at the peak shaped how I understand both risk and cycles. As a trainee in a leading German real estate firm, everything moved quickly, with enormous deals and constant activity. Real estate seemed solid – bricks, mortar, due diligence tours of assets, careful planning – but the pace felt like something out of a trading room. It wasn’t long before I realised how little I actually understood about how fragile things could be.

I had already decided to make a move and had joined an insurance firm just as the market turned. There, the focus shifted dramatically: from high-flying deals to calculating long-term risks on residential portfolios, I became more interested in what guaranteed rent flows really meant.

It was at that moment that I saw both sides – the thrill of rapid transactions and, later, the grind of dealing with distressed assets and tenants whose reliability wasn’t always assured. The lesson: never take for granted ‘how things are done’. Markets can always surprise you, and real estate, for all its tangibility as a real asset, is just as vulnerable to cycles as many other asset class.

In hindsight, do you think you could have anticipated how quickly things would change?

CO: No, and that’s part of the humility the industry teaches. You see patterns – racing markets, spreadsheets showing ideal outcomes – but models can’t really capture reality. Looking back, the speed was a warning, even if I didn’t recognise it then. Today, I’m much more careful not to be lulled by prevailing assumptions. Being ‘early’ in my career meant I could watch veterans adapt. But even they sometimes underestimated the coming storm.

You’ve witnessed both the GFC and the Covid pandemic’s effects on real estate. How did those crises compare, and what did they teach about managing through the unknown?

CO: The GFC was my first lesson in true uncertainty – liquidity vanished quite suddenly, distressed sales multiplied, and ambitious underwriting was exposed. I’d say Covid was different because it hit all aspects of life. At the time, I was managing a retail portfolio spread across eleven countries: overnight, shops closed, the team was at home, and IT infrastructure became crucial. Personally, my family hosted an au pair from Italy, so we felt the crisis before it hit Germany.

Responsibility weighed heavily, especially as we reported to third-party investors who needed real-time updates on regulations, asset status, and safety. We chose transparency, giving weekly reports on each country’s rules and restrictions, vaccination rates, and our own best guesses. Investors appreciated honesty, not false reassurance.

But Covid really brought it home to me that data alone isn’t enough – human elements matter. The lesson was to communicate proactively, to share what we knew – and admit what we didn’t know – and to act quickly in the face of ambiguity.

Do crises define real estate more than other markets?

CO: Market peaks breed complacency, but crises change everything – liquidity dries up, diligence takes priority, and resilience wins. Each crisis redefines how we underwrite, manage, and value assets. Distressed opportunities emerge, but only for those prepared and able to move quickly. As a fiduciary managing investor capital rather than balance sheet money, you become hyper-aware of the responsibility to protect, inform, and adapt.

How do you get across the importance of humility, and the need to look beyond the numbers, to team members who are new to the world of real estate investment?

CO: Reality is much more complex than university teaches. When new colleagues join, they’re often shocked by how little they truly know. My first lesson: accept that you don’t know much. Stay humble. We encourage zooming out – don’t get lost in asset-level details, but look for patterns across portfolios and broader cycles.

There’s never a single ‘right’ answer – just a collection of arguments to balance. Different investors require tailored approaches: those with annual payout obligations need liquidity and certainty; those with time can afford to wait for recovery. Investing is about making trade-offs, not just applying formulas.

How has AI and new technology changed your thinking about uncertainty, decision-making, or training the next generation?

CO: AI offers both promise and risk. Junior colleagues crave certainty, asking Siri or ChatGPT for concrete answers, but investing rarely works that way. We expose them to decision-making committees – real discussions where multiple arguments and viewpoints are standard. Our goal is to help them learn to live with stress and ambiguity, understanding that most investment calls require patience and experience.

Becoming a well-rounded fund manager takes about ten years – two years to learn the fundamentals of each major stakeholder subject: investment analysis, asset management, debt structuring, accounting, and any technical aspect like ESG. Experience builds slowly, and I urge patience and openness to mistakes along the way.

In what way do you approach risk perception and management differently compared to the past?

CO: I never assume stability. Liquidity is paramount, and I always question underlying asset characteristics. Experience shows that quick wins often mask deeper risks, so diligence, patience, and clarity of objectives come first. I look for broader patterns – not just asset-level trends, but macro factors, regulatory shifts, and the effects of global crises.

Resilience is more than a buzzword: it’s the ability to adapt to new information and unexpected shocks. Black swan events are impossible to predict, but you can always improve at being ready to respond quickly when the unlikely or unexpected materialises.

With all the current geopolitical and macro trends – take your pick from populism, sovereign debt, volatile world leaders – how optimistic are you about the future? And is there anything to suggest that this time really is different?

CO: I am worried about the future, but I also remain optimistic. The world now faces multiple simultaneous crises, making prediction harder than ever. Ray Dalio’s book ‘Changing World Order’ describes the rise and fall of empires, and the current environment feels unusually unpredictable. But I’m convinced opportunity exists as long as we remain flexible and open to others’ ideas. The critical thing is to accept ambiguity and to listen, especially to those with different perspectives, which sharpens our arguments and decisions.

Interviewed in November 2025