CHICAGO—In the past few years, Asian investors seeking stability have snapped up chunks of commercial real estate across the US. And in 2015, this flow of money from east to west should strengthen as new players from the Asia/Pacific region jump into the market, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate-Global Outlook, a study by PwC and the Urban Land Institute based on interviews and surveys they did with over 1,000 professionals.

Recently, much of this money came from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and insurance companies in China and Korea. But many of those surveyed by PwC and ULI believe the US and Europe will soon start to see pension fund capital from Japan make inroads. In addition, the greater amounts of Asian capital sloshing around will result in some of it flowing away from the UK and the US gateway cities, and into markets like Germany and France, and US cities such as Atlanta, Chicago and Houston.

The optimistic outlook on 2015 follows a good year for direct investment. According to Real Capital Analytics, global transactions involving income-producing real estate totaled $770.2 billion in 2014, up 9% from 2013. Land sales added another $373.3 billion to the total, a 29% decline from 2013 mostly attributed to a drop in Chinese land purchasing.

One striking fact from 2014 was that investors did not show too much concern about Europe's economic malaise. According to RCA, the continent accounted for about half of all cross-border investment.

“What's really driving all this activity is the availability of capital rather than the underlying fundamentals,” says one banker interviewed by the PwC/ULI researchers. “It just comes down to people needing to deploy capital.”

And most expect that investment will continue flowing to the continent in 2015. According to the new report, of those canvassed, “56% expect there to be moderately more equity in the market in 2015, with 15% expecting it to be significantly greater.” Furthermore, most expect that this extra capital will come from real estate investors in both the Americas and the Asia/Pacific region. In fact, 83% expect that capital flows from Asia into Europe will increase in 2015.

Observers expect something similar will happen in the US. Chinese investors have already been remarkably active in many US markets. Greenland USA, a subsidy of the Chinese developer Greenland Group, for example, recently began the second phase of construction on Metropolis, a $1-billion mixed-use development in Downtown Los Angeles. Greenland also acquired 70% of the 14-building Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn which it will co-develop with Forest City Enterprises. China Vanke, meanwhile, has teamed up with Tishman Speyer on a 655-unit apartment development in San Francisco.

One of the reasons experts expect more capital from the region is that Asia-based investors currently allocate 6.9% of their funds to real estate, far below Western standards. Some interviewed for the study suggested that 12% could be the new Asian benchmark.

Furthermore, Japanese pension funds hold some of the largest capital pools in the world. And demographic changes will start forcing many, including the $1.2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, to move away from low-yielding government bonds and into investments with higher yields. “Real estate just looks so attractive to a pension fund,” says one fund manager. “It is one of the highest yielding asset classes on the planet.”

And the solid state of the US economy, and the widely-held expectation that it will improve in 2015, will keep pushing up the prices that domestic and international investors will pay for US assets. But survey participants also told researchers that they wanted “to take on a measured amount of new risk in search of higher yields.” Proposed strategies include “looking for the best assets in markets outside the core major markets.”

Significantly, respondents ranked Charlotte NC as the seventh most attractive city, higher than Seattle and Boston; and Nashville, ranked at 14, topped Manhattan.

“Investors are looking closely at opportunities beyond the core markets,” says ULI global chief executive officer Patrick L. Phillips. “These cities are positioning themselves as highly competitive, in terms of livability, employment offerings, and recreational and cultural amenities.”