This move toward sharing the risk exemplifies the discipline that commercial real estate players are bringing to their game in 2015. “Especially on the equity side, people have begun to realize what they can and can't do,” says Bezold. “They may realize that they're not owners or operators, so they're willing to do JVs with people who do focus on that.” That's often the case among foreign investors, who partner with US operator as they enter the domestic market.

Although Akerman's survey finds that for the first time, respondents rank global unrest as their chief concern, Bezold isn't seeing overseas investors coming to the US as a means of escaping economic and political uncertainty in their own countries. “Our South American clients aren't coming up here because they don't want to keep their money down there,” he says. “I think it's more like they see there's a benefit to investing up here. It's more rational as far as that goes.”

Even the influx of Chiense money isn't due to concerns about the investing climate in the world's most populous nation. China, says Bezold, “seems to be a very stable place to make an investment.”

A plurality of survey respondents expressed confidence is the well-being of the US economy; Bezold believes we'll continue to hear that theme when Akerman conducts its next survey a year from now. “Employment is growing, not at a leapfrog rate but at a somewhat constant rate,” he says. “We need jobs in order to push real estate; that really is what supports real estate.”