Global 33% fall in real estate investment activity so far this year is less than the decrease at the start of the global financial crisis in the first half of 2008, when real estate investment volumes across the world fell by 49% and continued falling until mid-2009
The largest declines were seen in the Asia Pacific region, down 45%, and the Americas, down 36%. By region, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, saw only a 19% decline in investments.
Investments in residential properties in Asia-Pacific actually surged by 105% — partly boosted by the purchase of a Japanese apartment portfolio by Blackstone Group for about $3 billion in February 2020. The huge increase in entity-level deals in EMEA has helped insulate that market from the biggest falls, as some buyers have used this period for opportunistic M&A or equity deals.
The International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to shrink by 4.9% this year.
But some countries, including the U.K., plan to increase spending on infrastructure projects to push their economies out of recession.