NEW YORK CITY—Fueled partly by a record quarterly high in cross-border investment, US commercial property sales volume was up 49% year over year for the first quarter, Real Capital Analytics said Thursday. The $114.4 billion in domestic sales accounted for more than half the Q1 global total of $207.8 billion, according to RCA, offsetting disappointing results in other regions of the globe.

Regionally, transactions in the Americas totaled $117 billion in Q1, up 43% YOY. However, RCA says that with Canada and Latin America seeing sharp volume declines—Canada's quarterly tally was the lowest since the global financial crisis—the US was solely responsible for the significant increase.

Globally, European volume was up an impressive 32% YOY. However, the Asia Pacific region as well as Africa both fell short in the most recent quarter; therefore, the 27% increase globally during Q1 was due mainly to strong results in the US and Europe.

“The US continues to be flush with capital,” while falling interest rates over the quarter helped fuel the nearly 50% YOY surge in volume, according to RCA's Global Capital Trends report. “Portfolio and entity-level transactions were a big component of transaction activity in Q1, accounting for just under 37% of all sales volume.”

More such mega deals are in the works at present, says RCA. If they close, the trend of portfolio and entity-level transactions is likely to continue into Q2.

Furthermore, RCA says the volume gains in the US extended across most property types and markets. Industrial posted the biggest gain last quarter, up 127% YOY, while the apartment and hotel sectors both registered gains of 85% YOY.

In the office sector, volume was up 46% over the prior-year period and totaled $31.1 billion. That's 98% of all office sales volume for the sector throughout the Americas. Conversely, retail experienced a slight decline, largely due to a large portfolio trade inflating totals in the year-ago benchmark.

As expected, cap rates continued to move lower in the US in the quarter. They averaged 6.5% for office, 6.4% for retail, 6.9% for industrial, 5.9% for apartment and 8.0% for hotels. That being said, RCA notes that “there remains a wide distribution around these national averages, and top properties are commonly commanding sub-5% cap rates with trophy assets even lower, 4.0% or less.”

Property prices, as measured by the Moody's/RCA CPPI national aggregate, rose 4.9% in Q1 and are up 16.0% over the past year. The industrial sector has recorded the strongest price gains over the most recent quarter and the year-ago period at 5.8% and 18.7%, respectively, RCA says. Pricing trends for suburban office properties continue to trail the other property types. These have been the weakest in terms of recovery since the GFC.

Cross-border investors accounted for a record high $23.7 billion of US volume in Q1. Record high volumes were set for both individual properties and portfolios sold to cross-border investors. Singapore (i.e. GIC Pte Ltd., that nation's sovereign wealth fund), Canada and China accounted for the largest volumes, although Australia, Germany and the UAE each contributed at least $1 billion of volume to the quarter's totals as well.