INDUSTRIAL THE NEW INVESTOR DARLING?

It can’t be coincidence that at a time of enormous entity-level deals for industrial assets, the property type has become the investor favorite. That’s among the findings of the CBRE Group in its just-released North America Investor Intentions Survey 2015, which also found that industry players plan to go out further on the risk curve this year.

Although industriaI is not preferred by a majority of investors surveyed by CBRE, it did top the rankings with one-third of respondents selecting either of the two industrial categories as their preferred sector. Industrial was also first in 2014 with about the same response rate. Office comes in second highest with 25% of the vote, off slightly from 2014, with multifamily ranking third. Among niche property types, senior housing and healthcare are gaining in popularity, says CBRE.

By contrast, a compelling majority of investors—66%—said they’re either willing or feel obligated to wade into riskier waters, looking beyond core and good secondary markets in search of yield yield. That includes 53% of respondents who selected value-add as the most attractive asset strategy, with another 13% choosing opportunistic for a tally that’s well ahead of last year’s 57%.

Even so, the tried and true core markets, led by San Francisco, represent the most compelling targets for investors this year, as well as New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, DC and Chicago. The high growth Texas metro areas of Dallas and Austin also ranked highly, with the top 10 rounded out by four cities now enjoying robust economic growth: Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami and Nashville. Given the challenges that Houston faces with lower oil prices, it’s not surprising that it dropped out of the survey’s top 10.

Similarly unsurprising is the fact that investors plan to invest more in ’15, with half saying they expect their purchasing activity to increase this year. That includes approximately one-third who plan to increase their investment volumes by 20% or more.

“The strength of the economy creating real estate demand, improved property fundamentals and measured supply gains make North America extremely attractive, with investors maintaining a hungry appetite for real estate assets,” says Chris Ludeman, global president of CBRE Capital Markets. “A natural consequence of this appetite for real estate assets is the competitive investment environment.”

While prices in San Francisco may be high, “the dynamic economy and tight property market conditions remain extraordinarily compelling for investors,” Ludeman adds. New York City, meanwhile, “remains near the top of investor targets and will always be a compelling option. And while investors sometimes hesitate over Texas, Dallas/Fort Worth’s sustained economic and demographic growth is very hard to ignore—131,000 new residents in ‘14 alone and 132,000 new jobs” in the year that ended this past February.

If investors saw any obstacle to investing this year, it was increased competition and the challenge of finding appropriately-priced assets. Although 87% of last year’s survey respondents put this challenge at the top of the list, this year it was 100%.

Weakness in the global economy was seen as the greatest threat to property markets in North America, CBRE says. That’s the case among 29% of respondents even as the domestic economy is managing to expand amid a less robust global environment, and compares to just 10% who said the same thing last year. Running a close second at 27% of respondents was a concern that real estate has become overpriced, up from 20% in ’14.