Wealthy investors still bullish on global real estate market, survey shows

Despite tepid market conditions, wealthy investors aren’t giving up on real estate as an asset class, according to a new report from Barclays Wealth, which surveyed 2,000 individuals with investable assets greater than $800,000 across the globe between August and September 2009. Thirty-five percent of investors want to increase the proportion of real estate in their portfolios over the next two years; 48 percent plan to maintain it, the report says. Extremely wealthy investors — classified as those with $48 million or more in assets — were the most involved in real estate, with 40 percent of that group allocating more than half of their portfolios to real estate investments. And while the tight credit market is limiting their options, respondents overwhelmingly viewed real estate as an attractive investment for the future. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they wanted to invest in the residential market while only a slightly smaller 68 percent said that about the commercial market. TRD