UBS Asset Management’s global real assets business actively manages investments of around USD 120 billion* globally and regionally within Asia Pacific, Europe and the US, making it one of the largest asset managers in real assets worldwide. Our capabilities reach across the risk/return spectrum, ranging from core to value add and opportunistic strategies. We offer real estate, infrastructure equity and debt, and food & agriculture investments. Investors can access our diverse product range across open- and closed-ended private funds, investment trusts, listed funds, REITs and bespoke separately managed accounts.
* Asset under management stated on gross asset values basis, reflecting values as at 31 December 2025, where available.
Sector forecasts
GLOBAL: 2025 was a year of significant economic and geopolitical uncertainty, fueling recessionary fears and global caution in investing. However, despite this backdrop, the economy performed well, with the Advanced Economies growing by 1.9%, up slightly from 1.8% growth in 2024. Inflation was similar to that in 2024, at 2.5% for the Advanced Economies, slightly above the 2% target that many central banks aim for. Policy interest rates continued to fall, with the pace of cuts gradually slowing towards the end of the year. The European Central Bank (ECB) cut rates four times in 1H25, bringing the deposit rate to 2.0% in June 2025. The Bank of England (BoE) cut rates four times throughout the year, bringing rates down to 3.75%. In contrast, the Fed paused its rate cutting cycle in January 2025, leaving rates in the target range of 4.25%–4.50%, before commencing a second leg of rate cutting in September as it grappled with higher-than-expected inflation from tariffs and slowing growth. This left US policy rates in the target range of 3.50%–3.75% entering 2026. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) hiked rates by 25bps in January 2025. It then remained cautious due to uncertainty and kept rates on hold until December, when it hiked them by a further 25bps to 0.75%, the highest level in 30 years.
Following signs of recovery in 2024, and after allowing for seasonal effects, global real estate transaction activity declined in the first two quarters of 2025 as investors held back due to uncertainty, according to MSCI data. As economies held up and real estate markets proved resilient, transaction activity picked up in the second half of the year. After adjusting for seasonal effects, global all property investment volumes rose 24% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) in 3Q25 and 5% QoQ in 4Q25. Compared to 2024, global all property investment volumes rose 17% year-on-year to USD 888 billion for 2025 overall, with most sectors and geographies showing improvements towards the end of the year, though activity remained subdued overall.
As the real estate market faced uncertainty, certain sectors stood out in 2025 as defensive, namely residential, which benefited from strong demographic drivers. Retail, specifically grocery anchored retail, performed well as a result of its defensive non-cyclical nature. Certain niche sectors stood out as strong performers, including data centers, which have benefited from the AI boom. Industrial generally held up, but certain markets, especially port focused logistics, were impacted by tariffs. Office is another bifurcated sector where Grade A, well located offices have performed well and benefited from back-to-office mandates, whereas less well-amenitized offices have suffered.
At the global level, real estate capital values bottomed out in 2024 and started to edge higher in 2025, although the recovery was likely dampened by tariff announcements and uncertainty. Global real estate returns improved in 2025. According to the MSCI Global Quarterly Property Index, global all property total returns were 5.1% in local currency terms for 2025 as a whole, vs. 2.5% in 2024, with capital value growth of 0.6% and an income return of 4.5% in 2025. There were significant differences between real estate sectors, though. Office was still the weakest sector, with a global total return of 3.2%, but improved from a negative total return of -2.6% in 2024. By contrast, the other sectors were stronger, with retail recording the strongest total return of 7.3% and residential delivering a total return of 5.8%, while industrial and hotels recorded performances of 5.3% and 4.8% respectively.
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