Industrial is the preferred property type for investors in the Americas in 2017, according to CBRE's annual survey of 1,000 real estate investors.
Nearly 38% of survey respondents selected this property type as the “most attractive for investment purchases;” displacing multifamily from the top spot in 2016’s survey and pushing it to second.
Reflecting the headwinds in the retail sector from e-commerce competition, only 8% of investors cited retail as an attractive option in 2017—significantly lower than the 17% in 2016.
More than half of the 2017 survey respondents said they are currently invested in one or more alternative property sectors.
The largest is real estate debt (34%).
The vast majority of survey respondents are primarily equity investors, so in this context debt is considered an “alternative” investment.
Student housing, retirement living, healthcare and single-family residential are the next largest alternative property types in which Americas investors have holdings.
The survey included a companion question about the alternative sectors that investors are “actively pursuing.” The percentage of respondents who are actively pursuing retirement housing is noticeably higher than the percentage that is already invested in this sector.
According to CBRE, this differential suggests that interest in this alternative product type is rising. Conversely, student living has a lower level of interest in 2017 than the percentage of respondents already invested in it, as does real estate debt and leisure/entertainment.
