Global Investors Target Secondary Markets

CHICAGO—Foreign investors have long flocked to the top gateway markets like New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, but increasingly these individuals and institutions are poking around secondary markets throughout the US, a reflection both of the American economy’s strength and the transparency provided by the country’s real estate laws.

“We’ve had a great deal of foreign investment for decades,” Bruce Miller, the Chicago-based international director for JLL, tells GlobeSt.com, and many factors can turn the spigot on or off, including things like adjustments in currency exchange rates. But the way it typically works is at the beginning of an economic recovery, money flows to those gateway cities, but now that the recovery has taken hold, many foreigners have found the pricing there too aggressive and have shifted their focus to cities like Chicago, Houston and Seattle.