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Read Full ReportGlobal wealth grew 8.7% last year. The places to put it did not. Across most developed markets, real estate now trades at almost no premium to the local government bond — and that single fact explains more about where private capital is moving in 2026 than any story about tax exiles or safe havens.

After three
years of stalled transactions, global real estate is trading. JLL put global
direct investment up 28% year-over-year in Q2 2026 — the Americas up 26%, EMEA
up 27%, Asia Pacific up 38% and its most active second quarter in five years.
Europe transacted €59.1bn in Q2, up 10%. Asia Pacific set a Q1 record at
$47.0bn. In the U.S., first-half volume reached $250.3bn, up 21%.
The
cross-border leg matters more for our purposes. Cushman & Wakefield found
global cross-border investment rose 12% in 2025 — the first increase since 2021
— though it also found only 26% of U.S. cross-border activity went into new
acquisitions rather than refinancing assets investors already held. Knight
Frank sizes the global commercial market at roughly $1 trillion transacted in
2025, with the UK, U.S., Germany, France and Australia the leading destination
countries.
So capital is
moving. The question every family office and private investor is now working
through is where, and why.
Start with
the arithmetic, because it is the same everywhere and it is unforgiving. A
yield means little until you set it against what your own government pays you
to take no risk at all.
|
Market |
10-year sovereign |
Property yield |
Basis |
Gap |
|
United States |
4.73% (28 Aug) |
~6.6% |
All-property average cap rate,
every sector and tier |
~190 bps |
|
United Kingdom |
5.14% (31 Aug) |
5.25% |
Prime City of London office,
net initial (June guide) |
~11 bps |
|
Euro area |
3.37% (German bund) |
5.39% |
All-Europe average prime
office, Q2 2026 — includes non-euro markets |
— |
|
Switzerland |
0.43% (1 Sept) |
1.85% |
Zurich prime apartments, gross
residential |
~142 bps gross |
|
Brazil |
14.59% |
— |
Selic policy rate 14.00% |
— |
|
Egypt |
22.88% |
— |
CBE overnight deposit rate
19.00% |
— |
Read the
basis column before the numbers, because these are not the same measure. The
U.S. figure is an average across everything — the same CBRE survey quotes
suburban Class A office at 10–12.5%, so it is not a prime number. The UK figure
is prime, the tightest-priced asset in that market, and it comes from a
June guide against an August gilt print. The euro-area row pairs a German bund
against an all-Europe office average that includes non-euro markets, so it is
directional only. And the Swiss 1.85% is a gross residential yield
before operating costs, maintenance, management and vacancy; the net figure is
materially lower. On a genuine like-for-like prime net basis, the U.S.
advantage over the UK narrows considerably.
What survives
all of that is still the point. Across Europe, Cushman & Wakefield's
all-market averages sit at 5.39% for prime office, 5.23% for logistics and
4.77% for high-street retail — yields that made sense against a zero policy
rate and make far less against today's bunds and gilts. In markets where the
sovereign pays double digits, real estate has to clear a bar most assets can't.
|
UNITED KINGDOM. At 5.25% for prime City of London offices against a
5.14% gilt, a British investor is paid roughly eleven basis points to accept
illiquidity, tenant risk, capex and management. Prime West End core —
Mayfair, St James's — trades at 3.75% to 4.00%, below the gilt.
Property income grows and gilt coupons don't, so a reverse yield gap isn't
automatically irrational. But UK all-property capital values fell 0.2% in Q2
and Savills forecasts prime central London residential at −2.0% for 2026, so
the growth leg isn't currently doing the work. |
|
SWITZERLAND. The opposite problem, same conclusion. The SNB has
held at 0.00% since June 2025 and expects to stay there through end-2027; the
10-year pays 0.43%. Zurich apartments rose 10.6% year-over-year to CHF 23,350
per square metre while gross yields compressed to 1.85%, against a 2.91%
national average — and Wüest Partner forecasts existing-lease rents to fall
0.8% across 2026. Swiss banks passed CHF 10 trillion in client assets in H1
2026, though the Bankers Association attributes that largely to equity market
resilience rather than new inflows. |
This is the
structural pressure behind everything above. Capgemini counts 25.3 million
HNWIs holding $98.3 trillion, up 8.7% in a year. Knight Frank counts 713,626
individuals worth $30m or more — 89 people cross that threshold every day —
plus 3,110 billionaires and roughly 10,000 family office entities. BCG puts
total global financial wealth at $333 trillion, up 10.7%, with cross-border
wealth at $15.7 trillion.
Growth is not
evenly spread. Capgemini's HNWI population grew 9.1% in North America and 6.5%
in Europe, but just 0.3% in Latin America and fell 1.4% in the Middle
East. And the plumbing itself is shifting: BCG reported that Hong Kong overtook
Switzerland as the world's largest cross-border wealth hub for the first time,
at $2.9 trillion.
More money,
growing faster, chasing a stock of income-producing assets that did not grow at
the same rate. That is a yield-compression story before it is anything else.
Ask where
global capital is going and the honest answer is: it depends almost entirely on
where it started. UBS surveyed 307 family offices holding $627bn between them,
and the geographic splits are the most revealing data in the report.
U.S. family
offices hold 88% of their portfolios in North America. Swiss family
offices hold 50% in Western Europe against 37% in North America. Latin
American family offices hold 60% in North America and 23% at home — the
widest gap among the regions UBS disclosed.
That is not a
ranking of which investors are cleverest. It is a map of which investors have
historically been able to trust their own currency, courts and property
registries — and which have not. Home bias is cheap when your home market pays
you. It gets expensive fast when it doesn't.
|
LATIN AMERICA. The transaction data matches the survey. Foreign
purchases of U.S. homes fell 19.1% to $45.3bn in the year to March 2026 — and
Mexico went up, to $5.0bn across 9,400 homes, second-largest source of
foreign buyers by homes purchased and third by dollar value, while the
overall market retreated. In South Florida, international volume rose from
$3.1bn to $4.4bn across 5,300 properties, with Colombia at 15% of buyers and
Argentina at 12%. Argentina shows the durability of the instinct:
stabilization has held, with the IMF projecting 2026 inflation near 16% and
4.0% growth, and yet INDEC's Q1 2026 data shows US$284.0bn in currency and
deposits outside the domestic financial system — six times central bank
reserves — plus US$117.4bn in offshore portfolio investment. The 2024 amnesty
regularized US$32.2bn, largely by declaring assets already in the country:
40,530 of the 42,545 properties declared were Argentine. A preference measured
in decades, not electoral cycles. One correction to the usual story, though:
Mexico's peso is at 16.97, inflation 3.26%, and H1 FDI hit a record $34.96bn.
Mexican buying — 40% of it in Texas — is diversification and family
logistics, not flight. |
Deloitte
surveyed 850+ commercial real estate executives and found inflation hedging the
single most-cited motivation for allocating to property, named by 34% — ahead
of diversification at 26%. That instinct is close to universal. What differs by
market is whether the local asset actually delivers on it.
|
EGYPT. The pound went from 30.9 to 49.5 against the dollar in
a single day on 6 March 2024, settling near 50.6 afterward. It sits at 50.82
today — remarkably stable for two and a half years, helped by the $35bn Ras
El Hekma agreement with ADQ (about $24bn of it new money, the balance
converted from existing UAE deposits) and record reserves of $56.3bn in July.
Egyptian families responded the way anyone would: they bought property,
because property is what you can hold when the currency can't be. The
instinct is sound; the local instrument has not delivered. On Aqarmap's
index, Egyptian residential prices outpaced inflation in only two of the five
completed years from 2020 through 2024. In 2024 — the devaluation year,
precisely when a hedge should have worked — real prices fell 4.8%. The March
2026 reading was −8.22% nominal and −20.30% in real terms. |
|
THE GULF. Where a lot of that capital went instead. Dubai
residential runs 6–8% gross rental yields on Knight Frank and Markaz
comparisons, against 3–5% typical for London, New York and Singapore.
Egyptian buyers are now the third-largest nationality in Dubai property at
12.6% of purchasing activity, behind Indian (20.6%) and British (13.3%)
buyers — broker-compiled data rather than official Land Department
statistics. Henley's 2026 wealth-mobility scoring puts the UAE first globally
at 85.3, ahead of Singapore at 79.5 and Switzerland at 70.8. |
The dollar
fell roughly 9–10% in 2025, its worst year since 2017, and has been broadly
flat since — the index sits near 99.7, up 1.3% over twelve months. An investor
who didn't act last year has not watched the entry discount evaporate.
But 65% of
the family offices UBS surveyed expect confidence in the dollar's reserve
status to weaken over the coming year, and are moving toward multi-currency
frameworks. That tension — buying dollar assets while doubting the dollar — is
the defining feature of cross-border allocation in 2026, and it resolves in
exactly one place: the hedged return. Currency hedging costs frequently
consume the entire headline U.S. yield premium. An unhedged cap rate quoted to
a foreign investor is a marketing number, not an underwriting one.
Two figures
that look contradictory and aren't. Foreign purchases of U.S. homes fell 19.1%
in the year to March 2026 — NAR attributes that largely to the decline in
international visitors, not to pricing. Separately, CBRE reported inbound
cross-border capital into U.S. commercial real estate up 35% in H1 2026, to
$14.4bn. Keep that in proportion: $14.4bn is 5.8% of total U.S. volume, growing
off a small base.
Now the parts
that don't flatter the pitch. UBS found family offices planning strategic
changes intend to cut real estate to 8%, from an 11% average across all
respondents in 2025 — an intention, not a completed reallocation, held by about
60% of the sample. J.P. Morgan's survey of 333 family offices puts direct
private real estate at 7.4%. Capgemini finds broad HNWI allocations flat at
19%. Those three measure different populations against different denominators;
the gap is largely definitional, not a mystery.
There is also
a live counter-example. One CHF 13bn Swiss pension fund raised domestic real
estate to 27% this year while cutting foreign real estate to 3.5%,
describing Swiss residential as a core, stable holding. The yield case for
looking abroad is strong. The observed institutional flow is uneven. Anyone
telling you global money is flooding into American real estate is selling, not
reporting.
One more
piece of housekeeping on the record, since it circulated widely: the
"millionaire exodus" figures that dominated 2025 coverage came from
Henley & Partners, sourced to a provider called New World Wealth. Henley
stopped producing them — the 2026 edition dropped both the provider and the
country-by-country headcounts in favour of a competitiveness score, conceding
that outflow estimates "can vary by an order of magnitude depending on
which definition of 'millionaire' is applied." Where tax regimes did
change, as in Britain's move from domicile to a long-term residence test with a
tail of up to ten years, the effect on pricing is documented. The headcounts
are not.
What the
evidence does support: Deloitte found the U.S. is now the preferred
cross-border market for 16% of CRE respondents, up from 11% the year before,
with roughly 75% planning to increase real estate investment. That survey was
fielded in 2025. And on the residential side, 48% of foreign buyers paid all
cash against 28% of all existing-home buyers — equity, not leverage.
The spread
over your home risk-free rate tells you whether to look abroad. The hedged
return tells you whether to act. Income beats appreciation when two-thirds of
your peers doubt the reserve currency. And compare like with like — a gross
residential yield, an all-property average cap rate and a prime net initial
yield are three different things, and only one of them is what you'll be paid.
The rest is execution: know the submarket, control the asset, close what you said you'd close.
_
OTIMA invests in income-producing U.S. real estate alongside partners across four continents. We put our own capital in every deal, and we underwrite the downside before we underwrite anything else. Wherever you're running this math from, we're happy to run it with you.
Sources
1. JLL
Research, Global real estate trends and perspectives, 3 August 2026 —
global direct investment +28% YoY in Q2 2026; Americas +26%, EMEA +27%, Asia
Pacific +38%. https://www.jll.com/en-us/insights/market-perspectives/global
2. CBRE, European
Real Estate Investment Figures Q2 2026, 31 July 2026 — €59.1bn, +10% YoY. https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/european-real-estate-investment-figures-q2-2026
3. JLL, 19
May 2026 — Asia Pacific Q1 2026 investment a record USD 47.0bn. https://www.jll.com/en-hk/newsroom/asia-pacific-commercial-real-estate-investment-surges-to-record-usd-47-billion-in-q1-2026
4. Cushman
& Wakefield, Cross-Border Capital and CRE: Early 2026 Signals, April
2026 — global cross-border investment +12% in 2025, the first rise since 2021;
U.S. cross-border volume broadly flat; 26% directed to new acquisitions. https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/insights/cross-border-capital-and-cre
5. Knight
Frank, The Wealth Report 2026, April 2026 — approximately $1 trillion of
global commercial real estate transacted in 2025; leading destination countries
the UK, U.S., Germany, France and Australia; 713,626 UHNWIs, 3,110
billionaires, ~10,000 family office entities; 89 individuals cross the $30m
threshold daily. https://www.knightfrank.com/research/reports/wealthreport
6. Federal
Reserve, Selected Interest Rates (H.15), released 31 August 2026 — U.S. 10-year
Treasury 4.73% (28 Aug 2026). https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/
7. CBRE, U.S.
Cap Rate Survey H1 2026, 12 August 2026 — all-property average near 6.6%;
suburban Class A office 10.0–12.5%. https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/us-cap-rate-survey-h1-2026
8. CBRE, Q2
2026 U.S. Capital Markets Report, 30 July 2026 — H1 volume $250.3bn (+21%);
inbound cross-border $14.4bn (+35%); cap rate cited at 6.3% vs 6.0% a year
prior. https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/q2-2026-us-capital-markets-report
9. Trading
Economics — UK 10-year gilt 5.14% (31 Aug 2026); German 10-year bund 3.37% (1
Sept 2026); Brazil 10-year 14.59%; Switzerland 10-year 0.43% (1 Sept 2026). https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-bond-yield
10. Knight
Frank, Prime Yield Guide, 4 June 2026 — City of London offices 5.25% net
initial; West End prime core 3.75–4.00%. https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/site-assets/research/report-pdfs/yield-guide/kf-final-june-2026-prime-yield-guide.pdf
11. Cushman
& Wakefield, DNA of Real Estate Q2 2026 — all-Europe prime office
5.39%, logistics 5.23%, high-street retail 4.77%. https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-kingdom/insights/dna-of-real-estate
12. CBRE
UK, UK Monthly Index Q2 2026, 9 July 2026 — all-property total return
1.2%; capital values −0.2%. https://www.cbre.co.uk/press-releases/uk-all-property-total-returns-in-q2-2026
13. Savills
prime residential forecasts, 27 January 2026 — prime central London −2.0% for
2026, as reported by Property Investor Today. https://www.propertyinvestortoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2026/01/savills-forecast-prime-markets-bottoming-out-in-2026/
14. Swiss
National Bank — policy rate cut to 0.00% on 19 June 2025; held at the
assessment of 18 June 2026. https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/communication/press-releases-restricted/pre_20260618
15. Global
Property Guide, Switzerland Residential Property Market Analysis 2026
(Wüest Partner / SNB data, Q1 2026) — Zurich apartments CHF 23,350/m²
(+10.61%); Zurich prime gross residential yield 1.85%; national average
2.91%; existing-lease rents forecast −0.8% for 2026. https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/europe/switzerland/price-history
16. Swiss
Bankers Association, Banking Barometer, 31 August 2026 — client assets
passed CHF 10 trillion in H1 2026, attributed largely to equity market
resilience. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/workplace/asb-forecasts-further-growth-for-the-banking-sector-in-2026-as-well/91979977
17. IPE —
CPV/CAP Pensionskasse (CHF 13bn): Swiss real estate raised to 27%, foreign real
estate cut to 3.5%. https://www.ipe.com/news/domestic-equities-gain-as-swiss-pension-fund-scales-back-us-allocations/10135093.article
18.
Capgemini, World Wealth Report 2026, 4 June 2026 — 25.3m HNWIs holding
$98.3tn (+8.7%); HNWI population growth North America +9.1%, Europe +6.5%,
Latin America +0.3%, Middle East −1.4%; HNWI real estate allocation stable at
19%. https://www.capgemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WWR_2026.pdf
19. BCG, Global
Wealth Report 2026: The Great Reordering, 27 May 2026 — global financial
wealth $333tn (+10.7%); cross-border wealth $15.7tn (+8.4%); Hong Kong overtook
Switzerland as the largest cross-border wealth hub at $2.9tn. https://www.bcg.com/press/27may2026-hong-kong-surpasses-switzerland-largest-cross-border-wealth-hub
20. UBS, Global
Family Office Report 2026, 28 May 2026 — 307 family offices, $627.4bn; U.S.
88% North America; Swiss 50% Western Europe / 37% North America; LatAm 60%
North America / 23% Latin America; real estate 11% (2025 average) falling to 8%
among offices planning changes; 65% expect confidence in the dollar's reserve
status to weaken. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20260528-global-family-office-report-2026.html
21. J.P.
Morgan Private Bank, 2026 Global Family Office Report — 333 family
offices across 30 countries; direct private real estate 7.4% of portfolios. https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/nam/en/insights/reports/2026-family-office-report
22.
National Association of Realtors, 2026 International Transactions in U.S.
Residential Real Estate, 29 July 2026 — $45.3bn (−19.1%); 67,100 homes
(−14%); 48% all-cash vs 28% of all existing-home buyers; Mexico $5.0bn / 9,400
homes (second by homes, third by dollar value); Florida 20%, California 19%,
Texas 12%. https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/foreign-buyers-purchased-45-3-billion-worth-of-u-s-homes-from-april-25-to-march-26
23. MIAMI
Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile of International Home Buyers, 27
January 2026 — South Florida international volume $4.4bn across 5,300
properties, up from $3.1bn / 4,000; Colombia 15%, Argentina 12%. https://www.miamirealtors.com/2026/01/27/miami-is-1-u-s-market-for-foreign-home-buyers-new-miami-realtors-international-report-released-today/
24. INDEC,
Q1 2026 international investment position, reported by La Nación and Infobae,
24–25 June 2026 — US$284.0bn in currency and deposits outside the domestic
financial system; portfolio investment abroad US$117.4bn. https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/dolar/cuantos-dolares-tienen-guardados-los-argentinos-debajo-el-colchon-nid24062026/
25. ARCA
(Argentina), final results of the Law 27.743 asset regularization, 26–27
December 2024 — US$32.151bn regularized; 42,545 properties declared, of which
40,530 were located in Argentina. https://www.infobae.com/economia/2024/12/27/mas-de-42000-inmuebles-en-la-argentina-y-el-exterior-fueron-declarados-en-el-blanqueo-informo-el-gobierno/
26.
Americas Quarterly, Argentina: A 2026 Snapshot — IMF projections for
2026: inflation ~16.4%, GDP growth 4.0%. https://americasquarterly.org/article/argentina-a-2026-snapshot/
27. Mexico
News Daily, 26 August 2026 — USD/MXN 16.97; H1 2026 FDI US$34.96bn (+2.1%), a
record; headline inflation 3.26%. https://mexiconewsdaily.com/politics/sheinbaum-mexico-economy-mananera-wednesday/
28. NAR,
"Mexico–U.S. real estate partnership," 3 November 2025 — 40% of
Mexican U.S. purchases in Texas. https://www.nar.realtor/news/real-estate-news/mexico-us-real-estate-partnership
29.
Exchange-Rates.org, USD/EGP historical series — 30.902 on 5 March 2024; 49.549
on 6 March 2024; 50.820 on 31 August 2026. https://www.exchange-rates.org/exchange-rate-history/usd-egp
30. Central
Bank of Egypt — net international reserves US$56.29bn at end-July 2026, a
record, via Zawya; CBE held rates for a fourth consecutive meeting (overnight
deposit 19.00%). https://www.zawya.com/en/economy/central-bank-of-egypt-net-international-reserves-reached-56293.9mln-at-end-of-july-2026-422238
31. Cbonds,
Egypt 10-Year Yield to Maturity, 31 August 2026 — 22.88%. https://cbonds.com/indexes/24229/
32. ADQ, 23
February 2024 — US$35bn Ras El Hekma investment: US$24bn for development rights
plus US$11bn converted from existing UAE deposits; Egyptian state retains a 35%
stake. https://www.adq.ae/newsroom/adq-led-consortium-to-invest-usd-35-billion-in-egypt/
33. Global
Property Guide, Egypt Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 (Aqarmap
Real Estate Index) — real price changes: 2020 −14.4%, 2021 −2.2%, 2022 +3.4%,
2023 +6.1%, 2024 −4.8%; March 2026 −8.22% nominal / −20.30% real. https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/middle-east/egypt/price-history
34. Kuwait
Financial Centre (Markaz) and Knight Frank comparisons, reported by Khaleej
Times, 16 February 2026 — Dubai residential gross rental yields 6–8%,
against 3–5% typical for London, New York and Singapore. https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/asia/dubai-yields-stay-among-worlds-highest-as-gcc-property-surge-rolls-into-2026
35. Harbor
Real Estate / DXBinteract, reported by Khaleej Times, 9 July 2026 —
Egyptians the third-largest buyer nationality in Dubai property at 12.6% of
purchasing activity, behind Indian (20.6%) and British (13.3%) buyers.
Broker-compiled data, not official Dubai Land Department statistics. https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/indian-uk-egyptian-investors-top-dubai-property-buyers-in-2026
36. Henley
& Partners, Private Wealth Migration Report 2026, 16 June 2026 —
Wealth Mobility Competitiveness Scores: UAE 85.3, Singapore 79.5, Switzerland
70.8, Brazil 64.2, USA 62.3. Country-level millionaire headcounts discontinued;
New World Wealth no longer the data provider; "estimates of a single country's
outflows can vary by an order of magnitude depending on which definition of
'millionaire' is applied." https://www.henleyglobal.com/newsroom/press-releases/henley-private-wealth-migration-report-2026
37. Tax
Justice Network, 16 June 2026 — reporting on the methodology change. https://taxjustice.net/press/millionaire-exodus-study-drops-author-and-numbers-after-fake-data-accusations/
38.
Deloitte TaxScape, Reform of the UK's non-dom regime, inheritance tax and
trusts — four-year FIG regime; long-term residence test (10 of 20 years)
with a tail of up to 10 years. https://taxscape.deloitte.com/article/reform-of-the-uk-s--non-dom--regime--inheritance-tax-and-trusts.aspx
39. Trading
Economics, U.S. Dollar Index, 1 September 2026 — 99.696, +1.32% over twelve
months; 2025 decline of roughly 9–10%, the steepest since 2017 (reported
between −9.0% and −10.2% across outlets). https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/currency
40. Deloitte, 2026 Commercial Real Estate Outlook, published 29 September 2025 and fielded in 2025 — survey of 850+ CRE executives; inflation hedging cited by 34% and diversification by 26% as motivations; the U.S. is the preferred cross-border market for 16% of respondents, up from 11%; ~75% plan to increase real estate investment. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/commercial-real-estate-outlook.html
Market data as of 1 September 2026. Yields, rates and currency levels move; figures should be re-verified before relying on them. Where reputable sources disagree, both figures are named in the text rather than reconciled. Property yields quoted on different bases — gross residential, all-property average cap rate, and prime net initial yield — are labelled as such and are not directly comparable. This is market commentary and general information only. It is not tax, legal or investment advice, and it is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or interest in any investment vehicle.