Key Takeaways
- • 47th annual report from PwC and ULI surveys over 1,500 industry professionals across investors, fund managers, developers, lenders, and advisers to identify macro real estate trends, capital markets shifts, and property sector performance across the U.S. and Canada for 2026.
- • Mixed-use assets demonstrate operational resilience with higher occupancy rates, stronger tenant retention, and diversified revenue streams emerging as key competitive advantages in 2026.
- • Industrial and logistics properties remain core investment focus as market fundamentals support continued allocations within institutional and alternative investment portfolios.
- • Data center expansion accelerates driven by AI infrastructure demand, reflecting investor recognition of technology-driven real estate as a secular growth segment.
- • Private wealth increasingly influences capital deployment patterns across real estate markets, signaling a structural shift in funding sources and investment decision-making away from traditional institutional channels.
Summary
PwC and the Urban Land Institute released the 47th edition of *Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2026*, a comprehensive outlook conducted through surveys and interviews with over 1,500 real estate industry participants. The research captures perspectives from investors, fund managers, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers, and advisers, positioning the report as one of the most widely referenced forecasts in the institutional real estate sector. The report covers investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets dynamics, property sectors, and metropolitan area performance across the United States and Canada.
The 2026 outlook identifies several material shifts shaping institutional allocations. Mixed-use properties have emerged as a favored asset class, demonstrating higher occupancy levels, improved tenant stickiness, and the ability to generate diversified income streams—attributes particularly valuable in an environment of moderating inflation and interest rate stabilization. Industrial and logistics remain core holdings within institutional portfolios, supported by sustained market fundamentals. A significant trend involves the expansion of data center real estate, driven by accelerating artificial intelligence infrastructure investment, which institutional managers view as a secular growth opportunity with durable tenant demand.
Capital sourcing dynamics are experiencing notable transformation. Private wealth is expanding its influence on real estate capital allocation patterns, reflecting both the increasing scale of family office and ultra-high-net-worth portfolios directed toward real estate and a structural shift away from traditional institutional capital dominance. This redistribution of investment power has implications for deal structure, risk tolerance, and strategic positioning within the real estate market.
The report's research methodology emphasizes anonymity and aggregation—while over 500 individuals were interviewed and nearly 1,250 survey responses were collected, quotations and findings are presented without individual attribution, with only willing participants identified in supplementary documentation. This approach preserves respondent confidentiality while ensuring that the findings reflect a broad cross-section of market participants and their expectations for 2026 capital deployment, risk positioning, and property type performance.
The 2026 outlook identifies several material shifts shaping institutional allocations. Mixed-use properties have emerged as a favored asset class, demonstrating higher occupancy levels, improved tenant stickiness, and the ability to generate diversified income streams—attributes particularly valuable in an environment of moderating inflation and interest rate stabilization. Industrial and logistics remain core holdings within institutional portfolios, supported by sustained market fundamentals. A significant trend involves the expansion of data center real estate, driven by accelerating artificial intelligence infrastructure investment, which institutional managers view as a secular growth opportunity with durable tenant demand.
Capital sourcing dynamics are experiencing notable transformation. Private wealth is expanding its influence on real estate capital allocation patterns, reflecting both the increasing scale of family office and ultra-high-net-worth portfolios directed toward real estate and a structural shift away from traditional institutional capital dominance. This redistribution of investment power has implications for deal structure, risk tolerance, and strategic positioning within the real estate market.
The report's research methodology emphasizes anonymity and aggregation—while over 500 individuals were interviewed and nearly 1,250 survey responses were collected, quotations and findings are presented without individual attribution, with only willing participants identified in supplementary documentation. This approach preserves respondent confidentiality while ensuring that the findings reflect a broad cross-section of market participants and their expectations for 2026 capital deployment, risk positioning, and property type performance.
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