Cross-Border Investment in US Properties Drops 54%
February 17, 2020 | Greg Isaacson | Commercial Property Executive
Foreign investment in U.S. commercial real estate plunged by 54 percent in 2019, falling short of outbound investment for the first time in six years, according to a new report by CBRE.
The dramatic drop in overseas capital flows was largely caused by a pullback in entity-level sales last year, after a string of blockbuster M&A transactions buoyed investment volumes in 2018. Excluding such entity-level deals, inbound investment in 2019 declined by 12.1 percent year-on-year.
U.S. capital outflows eased back 1 percent from 2018 levels last year, but still exceeded inbound flows by $17.5 billion, the report shows, drawing on data from Real Capital Analytics. The last time the U.S. was a net exporter of capital in the commercial real estate market was 2014.
