Foreign Buyers See US at Bargain

From Newsmax A poll conducted by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate of 100 of its members shows that 54 percent of lenders and 40 percent of equity investors intend to boost their global real estate activity this year.

The numbers are even higher for the United States. A whopping 73 percent of equity investors intend to allocate more money to U.S. real estate this year, and 58 percent of lenders plan to lift their activity here.

New York and Washington, D.C. — in that order — topped the city popularity chart for the respondents. That’s worldwide, not just in the United States.

Everyone knows what happened to the U.S. real estate market last year.

As credit flow halted, commercial property sales naturally fell.

But some now say the worst is over and believe the U.S. real estate market will rebound first, just as it fell first. The fact that it’s the world’s biggest property market doesn’t hurt either.

Accordingly, real estate has officially entered the financial lexicon as a value investment. It may be time to climb aboard.

“If you are going to be an international investor you’ll want a significant part of your portfolio in the largest market,” Jim Fetgatter, the association’s chief executive, told Reuters.