Majority of Property Investors Plan Purchases as Prospects Rise

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A majority of real-estate investors plan acquisitions in the next 12 months as they expect lower vacancies and increased tenant demand to lift rents, according to a global survey compiled by Colliers International.

Sixty percent of respondents said they plan to make commercial property purchases in the next year, mainly in their home markets, according to the report released by the Seattle- based adviser. Those looking abroad favor Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, London, New York, Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, the survey showed.

"Investors have considerably more confidence than just six months ago," Jamie Horne, chairman of Colliers Asia, said in the report. "Many still feel real-estate markets are unusually uncertain and will remain that way for some time."

Most investors said rents for offices, stores and warehouses had already rebounded from the bottom, supporting prospects for property income growth and higher prices. In Colliers's previous survey in the first quarter, most said the market was either at or near a trough. Rising confidence lifted global real estate sales by 56 percent to $379 billion in the first nine months from a year earlier, according to data compiled by New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc.

The survey showed that about three-quarters of respondents said economies are unlikely to experience a "double dip" recession, and 79 percent expected the availability of debt finance to stay the same or increase in the next year.

Colliers International, the world's third-largest real- estate adviser and part of FirstService Corp., surveyed more than 200 investors that own or manage $710 billion of real estate across the globe from Aug. 15 to Sept. 7.