Global real estate investment market increases to $8.5t in 2017

The size of the professionally managed global real estate investment market increased from $7.4 trillion in 2016 to $8.5 trillion in 2017, according to MSCI Real Estate’s newly released Real Estate Market Size 2017 report.

The U.S. remained the largest market, followed by Japan and the United Kingdom.

Germany ranked as the fourth-largest national market, overtaking China, which had held this position for two years (2015 and 2016). Although both markets grew in 2017, Germany’s increase was larger, according to the report.

Currency was a big driver of market size estimates as well. Capital value growth and new developments in the market, such as new construction and sale and leaseback transactions, also contributed to the growth in market size.

The most significant absolute change was for the United States, with a market size increase of $244 billion, while no country saw a decline in its market size estimate. However, the most significant change in percentage terms was for Spain, with an increase of 39 percent, driven by a 14 percent currency impact due to euro appreciation against U.S. dollar, 9 percent capital value growth and a residual impact of 14 percent. Apart from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany also saw their market size increase by more than $100 billion.

MSCI began systematically estimating the size of professionally managed real estate investment markets in 2004.