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RICS Monitor: CRE Investment Sentiment Resilient Amid Tariff Tensions

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Senior Economist Tarrant Parsons told CPE’s Laura Calugar that he expects the U.S. economy to slow this year but not fall into recession. The post RICS Monitor: CRE Investment Sentiment Resilient Amid Tariff Tensions appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Commercial real estate investment inquiries have improved to their strongest level since early 2022 in the first quarter of the year, despite growing concerns about the impact of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, according to the latest Global Commercial Property Monitor released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London.

“Across the globe, in aggregate, the latest feedback is quite resilient,” said Senior Economist Tarrant Parsons in this episode of our RICS Monitor quarterly podcast series. “In fact, there are even some modest signs of improvement between the Q4 and the Q1 results, particularly when it comes to investment demand.”

Prime industrial assets are still the most sought-after, followed by retail. Among alternative asset classes, data centers continue to be viewed as delivering the strongest returns over the next 12 months.

Meanwhile, the RICS survey found that credit conditions are improving to some degree, though the pace has slowed down. Tariffs are clearly dominating the business news, and the related uncertainty has been reflected in a sharp pullback across the financial markets, although these have settled down a little bit following the 90-day pause that was announced.

“I think the messaging from the U.S. administration has been quite confusing in recent days, pretty erratic and it makes it almost impossible to predict the final outcome,” Parsons said.

Here’s what else he touched on in this episode: