Europe's Housing Imbalance and the Living Opportunity with Tom Livelli, Partner and Head of Living Strategies, Europe at EQT Real Estate

This week, I sat down with Tom Livelli to dive into how Europe's chronic housing undersupply, shifting renter behaviour, and capital rotation are shaping one of the most compelling living strategies in global real estate today.

Tom is a Partner with EQT Real Estate and Head of Living Strategies, Europe, based in Madrid. Before EQT, he helped build Greystar's South American business from a laptop in a Santiago coffee shop into a billion dollar platform, and previously led large scale residential and mixed use projects in the US, Latin America, and Central America. His career spans military housing, emerging markets, and now a pan European living platform backed by EQT's active ownership model.

We unpack how his experience across eleven countries informs his view of risk, liquidity, and political stability, why Europe's living sector now offers "higher return for lower risk," and how EQT is designing product, operations, and capital structures for the next phase of the cycle.

Key Topics Covered in This Episode

✅ Building a Pan European Living Platform

How EQT Real Estate has assembled a vertically integrated but not overbuilt living strategy across student housing and apartments, with local teams on the ground and a value add focus across multiple European markets.

✅ From Military Housing and Central America to Greystar and EQT

Why Tom's early work on military housing in the US, community building in Central America, and scaling Greystar in Chile gave him a deep appreciation for stable institutions, liquidity, and the realities of operating in emerging markets.

✅ Designing a Higher Return Lower Risk Living Model

How EQT is targeting urban, transit connected locations with minimal amenities, smaller minimum efficient scale, and lean operations to lower upfront investment, lift NOI margins, and tap deeper, more resilient segments of tenant demand.

✅ Europe's Structural Housing Imbalance

Why affordability pressures, later first time homeownership, and longer rental periods are driving an extraordinary surge in rental demand across Europe, and why Tom believes this supply demand gap gives the living sector significant room to run.

✅ Capital, Cycles, and Europe versus the US

How global institutions are viewing Europe relative to the US today, why accretive debt and repricing are creating a window for value add capital, and where Tom sees the most interesting opportunities by country and sector over the next few years.

And of course, I asked Tom the big question:

Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?

If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.

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