AFIRE’s quarterly survey of its members collects their attitudes toward cross-border investment in commercial real estate. The most recent one, from Q1 of 2025, showed significant changes from the end of 2024 — and isn't the most welcoming news for U.S. CRE markets.
The roughly 180 institutional investors, pension funds, asset managers, and other organizations across 25 countries, which together oversee $3 trillion in AUM, had been “cautiously optimistic” at the end of last year. However, amid the growing U.S. policy turbulence, tariff plans, and unpredictability, representatives from major investment organizations began to reassess their enthusiasm for property investment in the country. It's important to note that the interviews were taken in March before the major market disruptions in April.
About 42% of those surveyed had a negative outlook for cross-border investments in the U.S. last fall. That jumped to 63% in Q1, coupled with negative answers on whether the economy was on track for a recovery: 27% said yes, 35% said no, and 38% were unsure.
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Interestingly, expectations for property investments were stronger than might have been expected, given shifts in outlooks. U.S. property markets still had the perception of being a safe region for investment, albeit only slightly less so than in 2024. Eighty percent said global political tensions and changes in economic alignments are the greatest threat to safe investment. The portion that expected a major increase in the U.S. CRE investment outlook in 2024 was over 40%. In 2025, that was cut in half. About 45% expected a “notable increase in distressed assets.” That number was 85% in Q4 2024.
The top factors influencing the U.S. CRE investment outlook were geopolitics (20%), trade and tariffs (20%), interest rates (14%) and inflation (13%). Then came deregulation (9%), debt pricing (7%), housing affordability (6%), migration trends (6%), energy ecosystem (3%), and climate change (2%).
Top choices for investment holdings were, ranked largest to smallest as follows: multifamily, industrial/logistics, office, healthcare/MOB, other and single-family rental. No numbers were distributed with this information.
As for preferred U.S. markets, the top five, from highest to lowest, were Dallas, New York, Miami, Boston, and Atlanta. Then came San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, and Raleigh. Coming up from behind was Washington, D.C., Denver, San Diego, Tampa, Austin, Chicago, and Houston.
As AFIRE pointed out, though, all these metrics might be changing now, given the shifts in conditions in the U.S. that sharply grew after the close of Q1.
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