“Opportunities have no boundaries,” says Donald Trump. And the billionaire property mogul should know: with new office and residential projects underway in countries as diverse as India, Brazil and Georgia, it is an exciting time to diversify, he told the Financial Times. “We’ve been expanding internationally for some time now . . . There are a lot of opportunities and many good reasons to do so.”

But while Trump is known for having made both his first and his second fortunes in real estate, he is increasingly joined by an emerging class of private investors, many of whom struck it rich elsewhere. Amancio Ortega Gaona, the world’s fourth-richest man and founder of the high street Zara chain, has built up a property portfolio that could be worth more than $6.1bn, according to Bloomberg. Ortega’s holding company, Ponte Gadea (also known as Pontegadea Inversiones), recently snapped up Devonshire House in London for £400m, as well as a property in New York’s Meatpacking District for a total of $94m.

Spain and Italy have long been destinations for fair weather and fine food, but the two markets recently have been targeted by international capital for a very different type of feast. PERE Magazine, October 2014 issue 

After a prolonged dry spell in the wake of the global financial crisis, Europe has come back onto the real estate investment scene with a vengeance. In fact, the turnaround in the Continent’s fortunes is so complete that two markets in southern Europe, once thought of as far too risky, recently have emerged as hot destinations to park capital, particularly for real estate debt investors.

Over the past seven years, the global institutional investment market has proved an uncomfortable place for a property valuer. Not to place too fine a point on it, the journey has been a roller coaster ride.

As shown in figure 1, the market’s 2007-14 profile began with a steep tumble into the 2009 abyss of underperforming loans. Asset values melted like spring snows and, with them, credit lines and transaction activity. For the next two years, valuers felt deprived of any meaningful market evidence.

Predictably, two years later the slide began its reverse. Global investment volumes for properties worth more than $5m (€3.8m) began a sustained recovery on a quarterly, year-on-year. Records now show that in 13 of the past 16 quarters, investment volumes have been in positive territory. 

Europe’s commercial real estate sector stands to benefit from increased allocations from pension funds. That was the main message from this year’s annual EPRA conference, held in London this week.

Europe’s listed real estate sector is tipped to boost its share of the industry’s global market capitalisation.

At its annual conference in London today, the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) said Europe’s share of the market capitalisation of the global REIT market could rise to 18% by the end of next year, from just under 16% – or €145bn – at present.

Spain's ghost towns and half-finished developments could finally start to see life, as falling prices in the country's embattled real estate sector begin to signal the end of a seven-year slump, says ratings agency Fitch.

This year may well go down in history as the one in which Spain’s recovering commercial real estate sector finally threw its arms around the REIT. After just under half a decade of wrangling, Spanish REITs, or SOCIMIs (sociedades cotizadas de inversión en el mercado inmobiliario) are now a reality.

The latest RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor shows how Spain, Portugal and Ireland, some of the economies most affected by the 2008 crisis, are now experiencing a very positive turnaround in sentiment, in both the occupier and investment commercial property markets. 

Buoyed by attractive yields, Asian investors are lapping up properties in overseas markets, with investments surpassing previous years’ records.

The first half of 2014 saw $16.2 billion worth of outbound real estate investment from Asia – a 40 percent increase over the same period last year – according to data released by the global property services firm CBRE. Singapore has overtaken China as the most active source of cross-border investment onthe continent, followed by Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland occupying the third spot.