---
title: "Global Real Estate Investment Plunges 33% Amid Covid Pandemic"
description: "Global real estate investment fell by 33% in the first half as the coronavirus pandemic battered economies and disrupted deals."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Business Maverick"
author: "Bloomberg"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/bloomberg/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-20-global-real-estate-investment-plunges-33-amid-covid-pandemic/"
published: "2020-07-20T05:24:30"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 288
---

# Global Real Estate Investment Plunges 33% Amid Covid Pandemic

> Global real estate investment fell by 33% in the first half as the coronavirus pandemic battered economies and disrupted deals.

By Bloomberg · Published 20 July 2020, 07:24 SAST

## Content

The Asia-Pacific region took the biggest hit, with volumes down 45% from the year-earlier period, because it was the first struck by the outbreak, according to a report from broker Savills Plc. Investment dropped by 36% in the Americas and 19% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

With the tourism industry shut down for months by government lockdowns, hotels saw investment decline by 59% in the first half of the year, followed by a 41% drop for retail properties, according to the Savills report. Industrial and residential properties fared better.

Investment is “expected to remain well below pre-pandemic levels for the rest of 2020 as investors wait for market clarity,” Simon Hope, Savills head of global capital markets, said in a statement on Monday. “However, certain sectors are expected to outperform as investors focus on secure assets, namely logistics, residential and life sciences.”

The International Monetary Fund has [forecast](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-24/imf-forecasts-deeper-global-recession-from-growing-virus-threat) that global gross domestic product will shrink 4.9% this year as the pandemic wears on. IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath has said the cumulative loss for the world economy this year and next as a result of the recession is expected to reach $12.5 trillion.

Still, the investment decline was less severe than at the start of the last financial crisis in the first half of 2008, when investment cratered by 49% and kept falling until the middle of 2009, Sophie Chick, director of Savills World Research team, said in the statement.

Among the few bright spots in the Savills report was a 105% increase in Asian residential real estate investment, driven by Blackstone Group Inc.’s deal to buy a collection of Japanese apartments from Anbang Insurance Group for close to $3 billion, according to the report.