London remains the top city for investment among global property investors who plan to increase their purchases in 2015, according to CBRE’s Global Investor Intentions Survey 2015.
Other gateway cities such as Tokyo, Sydney, New York and Paris continue to place in the top ten.
Globally, 53 percent of investors expect to increase acquisitions this year with cross-regional deals growing significantly.
About 38 percent of those polled intend to invest outside their own region in 2015, up from 28 percent last year.
Among these investors, 27 percent consider Asia their preferred investment destination, with economic growth here still outpacing other regions and continuing to offer significant long-term growth potential.
The survey also found that investors prefer to pick office and industrial properties, attracting 33 percent and 29 percent of investors respectively.
“The “new normal” economic environment of moderate growth, low interest rates and compressing bond yields continue to drive investment in commercial real estate. We also observe the continuing globalization of the investment market, reflected by the 40 percent year-on-year growth in cross-regional capital flows in 2014 – a figure well above the growth rate for the market overall. The survey findings strengthen our view that overall volumes and cross-regional investment will increase in 2015,” said Richard Barkham, Global Chief Economist, CBRE.
Meanwhile, half of the respondents shared that the top obstacle to acquiring real estate assets is pricing. The tight availability of assets (21 percent) and competition from other investors (19 percent) were also identified as obstacles faced worldwide.
The survey polled more than 700 global real estate investors, including asset managers, property companies, institutional investors, REITs, private investors and banks.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
