Survey: Some Interest in Foreign RE Investment Growing

A majority of respondents to the first-ever mid-year version of an annual survey of foreign investors in real estate indicated they plan to invest some debt or equity in U.S. real estate before 2009 ends, even though many have not made any such investments so far. "Three quarters of the survey respondents had not yet invested in 2009; however, more than two-thirds of them plan to invest some debt or equity in U.S. real estate before the end of the year," the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, Washington, said. Thirty-one percent of the respondents to the survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate said they were more optimistic than at the beginning of the year, while 16% said they were more pessimistic and 53% said their expectations had not changed.