By Dr. Thomas Beyerle
May 2007

Cross-border investments have reached a new record last year. The largest percentage of growth in international direct investments were in the Asian markets, but the European, particularly the German, real estate investment market has also profited from the investment boom.

Source: Jones Lang LaSalle; Date: 2007

Robust economic data, high company profits, historically low interest rates, abundant liquidity in the financial markets, and steadily growing transparency resulting from decreasing access barriers in the worldwide real estate markets – these all ensure that commercial real estate investments around the globe will break the 2006 record by the end of this year.

According to estimates from DEGI Research, roughly 390 billion US-Dollars in direct commercial real estate investments will be registered in 2007. Jones Lang LaSalle notes a figure of roughly 201 billion US-Dollars for 2006. If you include North American, European and Asian investments in residential real estate, then this value increases to around 595 billion US-Dollars. Regardless of the exact value, however, the investment appetite of investors will remain steady.

As in the previous year, most commercial real estate investments were done in the North American and European markets, which have shares of 46 and 40 percent respectively. The real estate markets in Asia that – as in the previous year – had the highest growth (more than 43.1 percent) in direct investments as high as 67.5 billion US-Dollars also profited from the economic boom.