News

AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson interviews James Ball, the National Building Museum’s director of future cities, about the past, present and future of the structures we exist in every day. This conversation is geared to people who invest in developing buildings around the world. 

The AFIRE February 2026 Investor Survey Report provides key insights into the commercial real estate strategy of global investors.

Can office buildings from the 1970s and 80s–often dismissed as “garbage”—be the key to solving the US housing crisis?

AFIRE’s multiple award-winning Summit Journal begins 2026 on a high note, claiming three new awards for design, content, and thought leadership.

How will demographics affect commercial real estate investing? How will changes in generational characteristics affect opportunities in US property markets? Neil Howe is an author of The Fourth Turning and The Fourth Turning is Here.

Climate change is reshaping real estate, making climate fluency essential for investors. Resilience and adaptability are now core competencies, guiding decisions from underwriting to operations and positioning assets for long-term value in a changing world.

Mid-cap commercial real estate, generally defined as assets in the $20–$100 million range, represents a segment of the US market that remains relatively under-explored compared to both large-cap institutional transactions and smaller private investments.

Investment managers have an excellent opportunity to re-design their investment management practices using AI to achieve investment outcomes that are often influenced by market uncertainty, data proliferation, and rapid advances in finance and technology.

For CRE professionals, AI might seem like another tool in the smart building arsenal. But the possibilities of AI go far beyond utility and will require smart management and oversight to maximize its potential (and avoid its pitfalls).

If current trends sustain, data centers may become a defining infrastructure asset of the digital economy; equally, the sector’s evolution from energy sourcing to compute architectures means that the only constant is change.

Financial headwinds and generational shifts are driving a growing cohort of “Lifestyle Renters” willing to pay premium rents for the neighborhoods and amenities they desire—here is how to identify where they live and what they look for.

An emerging story blames migrants from high-cost, regulation-heavy coastal states for “importing” anti-development politics into the Sunbelt and reducing new housing. A county-level test of that claim does not hold up.

The AFIRE International Investor Survey: 2026 Outlook has 14 questions (and three potential sub-questions) and will take 5–8 minutes to complete. Deadline: Friday, December 12, 2026.

Middle East family offices are expanding beyond legacy real estate and directing capital into next generation US sectors including data centers, logistics, and student and workforce housing, driven by energy transition strategies, demographic resilience, and long-term value creation.

While there are incremental investment risks in Mexico, Mexican and US industrial share more characteristics than might be expected and the risk premium could justifiably be narrower than called for by sovereign bond spreads. 

The AFIRE H2 2025 Investor Survey provides key insights into the commercial real estate strategy of global investors.

With strong fundamentals and tailwinds, good quality and high volume of deal flow with ample debt availability, there are many reasons to consider looking at Canada.

Summit Journal Issue #20, to be published in February 2026, is currently seeking article proposals from across the commercial real estate community. Proposal deadline: October 31, 2025.

Population size, migration patterns, aging, household composition, and the rise of remote work are reshaping demand structures, presenting both challenges and investment opportunities across the commercial real estate landscape.

Rather than reacting impulsively to short-term market fluctuations, institutional investors have the resources (and patience) to recognize the US market as a continued cornerstone of global diversification strategies focused on attractive long-term returns.

Deep-pocketed international investors rank Boston as tied for the second-most desirable U.S. region in 2022, according to a survey by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE).

Favored Property Types Include Multifamily, Life Science and Industrial, According to Annual Survey

The survey shows U.S. CRE continues to be an attractive target for global investors. But they are switching up their strategies in response to post-pandemic trends.

Secondary and tertiary cities are poised to be foreign investor favorites over the next decade in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, as changing consumer preferences continue to influence how capital is deployed.

For thirty years, AFIRE (Association for International Real Estate Investors) has conducted an annual survey to understand the goals, challenges and long-term thinking of international investors in U.S. real estate. Show host Michael Bull interviews AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson on the results and insights from this year’s survey.

AFIRE released its 2022 International Investor Survey Report, underwritten by CBRE and Holland Partner Group. Austin, Atlanta, and Boston emerge as the top three cities for planned global investment in 2022, according to the report.

Especially since the Centennial Olympic Games 25 years ago, Atlanta has fancied itself an international city and player on the global stage. A new survey suggests the world shares in that opinion, at least in terms of valuable real estate.

New research from the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate may show that global buyers with long-term goals still have an appetite for U.S. real estate.

“The No. 1 most significant finding was the overwhelming support for environmental, social, and governance criteria,” Branson says.

Earlier this year, the AFIRE International Investor Survey found that more than six in 10 respondents expect to increase their investment in tertiary cities in the next three to five years.

Strong growth prospects and less intense competition is leading cross-border investors to secondary and tertiary markets.

The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) surveyed investors and found that many intend to increase investment volume in the U.S. this year.

The responses from our investors mirrored the results from a survey released in May 2021 by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) […]

For over 30 years, AFIRE has surveyed institutional investors from around the world The results from March’s survey are especially optimistic and very revealing.

During this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Gunnar Branson, CEO of AFIRE, speaks with Matt about current issues facing the CRE business, including his thoughts on what is driving foreign capital into US real estate right now as we are moving forward from the COVID crisis.

According to a recent article in the Austin Business Journal, The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) ranked Austin as the top market in the U.S. for foreign investors in 2021.

For instance, in AFIRE’s, the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate 2021 survey, the percentage of investors expecting to put more money into US CRE was much larger than for Europe (17%), Asia-Pacific (9%), the UK (7%), Canada (5%), or Australia and New Zealand (3%).

Gunnar Branson, CEO of AFIRE, Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate joins show host/investment sales broker Michael Bull, CCIM to discuss highlights from their annual survey/report, the 2021 AFIRE International Investor Survey Report.

In a recent poll published by AFIRE, overseas real estate investors preferred Dallas over almost every other US city to buy real estate in 2021; it lands on number 3.

AFIRE found Austin, Boston, and Dallas as the top U.S. cities for planned investment in 2021.