AFIRE Survey: Foreign Investors Love S.F.
S.F. held steady as the third in most-desired global cities for foreign investment, says the DC-based Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (led by CEO Jim Fetgatter) in its annual survey of foreign investors, released yesterday. Other list-toppers include New York, London, Munich, Madrid, and Houston. (Yet one more thing Auburn didn't win yesterday.)
S.F. is the second-most desired US city for real estate internationally. Evidence of its appeal: About a year ago, Tishman Speyer and China Vanke (the world's biggest real estate developer) joined forces to develop a 655-unit, two tower condo project at 201 Folsom (above), repping the first North American investment for China Vanke.
Jim has evidence of S.F. being a force to be reckoned with. AFIRE's annual conference last September took place in S.F. and had record attendance, he says, because everyone wanted to come and get a piece of the action. S.F. has picked up, he says, due to all the IPOs (Twitter's HQ, above), hiring, and the real estate market going "a little crazy." It wasn't always that way; from 2009 to 2011, S.F. was way lower on the survey's totem pole, he says. (Our theory is that 2011 was the year Full House finally made it to foreign televisions. It'll make anyone fall in love with our city.)
