Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutional real estate community has taken steps to adapt, which can be seen in the responses to our annual investor survey. They revealed an impact on real estate investment activity in 2020, though lesser than occurred during the global financial crisis, according to 2021 Institutional Investors Real Estate Trends, the 25th annual investor survey jointly conducted by Institutional Real Estate, Inc and Kingsley, a Grace Hill Co.

COVID-19’s impact

“It’s amazing how the real estate industry has responded to unprecedented challenges and weathered the storm,” says Jim Woidat, executive vice president with Kingsley, who reviewed the results in a briefing for IREI sponsors in February.

In 2020, estimated capital flows to real estate by US investors totalled $50 billion (€41 billion), a steep drop from the $75 billion (€62 billion) that was invested in 2019, but much higher than the $18 billion (