CRE tops preference survey as buyers and sellers converge

Commercial real estate has returned to the top of SitusAMC's quarterly investor preference survey for reasons that owe more to the world around it than to anything happening inside property fundamentals. SitusAMC, the real estate services and data firm, published the finding under its ValTrends research label in the 2Q 2026 Real Estate Report, and Peter Muoio, senior director of SitusAMC Insights, walked through the numbers in a webinar titled 'CRE Sentiment Improves, but Activity Remains in Check.' Investors, he said, now view CRE as stable in turbulent times relative to other asset classes, with tariffs, the war in Iran, and heightened uncertainty pushing capital toward assets that do not swing with every headline. Cash has generally been strong for the same reasons, while stocks and bonds look prone to wide fluctuations, and Muoio's bottom line is that capital is not shying away from commercial real estate.

Inside the survey, the more interesting move is a convergence, with the preference to sell matching the preference to buy in the most recent quarter for the first time in several years. After the Federal Reserve's 2022 tightening, the two preferences gapped apart and hold became the dominant answer — a stance Muoio says is still the most common — and that persistence means more investors are still unwilling to transact than willing to move in either direction. What changed is that the transaction-minded minority on each side has moved closer together, and if buyer and seller perceptions are lining up, he argued, the conditions for more transactions are starting to form.

None of this means the deal floodgates are opening, because Muoio was explicit that the discipline of both equity and debt capital remains relatively constrained compared with history, tied to the same uncertainty that is moving the preference rankings around. The analytics his clients run, he said, are becoming much more property- and micro-area-specific, so the era of broad-brush underwriting is over, lenders and equity investors must be selective, and the variation in outcomes across properties is widening. A top ranking in a preference survey does not authorize buying real estate generally; it authorizes buying specific real estate, at specific prices, in specific micro-markets. For allocators, the practical effect is that a real estate allocation now behaves less like a broad asset-class bet and more like a series of single-property underwriting decisions.

The SitusAMC findings fit the cycle PWD has been tracking, with Morgan Stanley declaring the four-year repricing finished and the base forming while listed REITs have turned the corner and private real estate still lags on appraisals. The new survey suggests the private side is starting to catch up emotionally, even if transactions have not yet followed, and SitusAMC's own prior quarter data showed office conviction climbing to 11 percent from 4 percent in early 2025, a sign that even the most beaten-down major sector is drawing fresh interest.

Read alongside the capital-discipline findings, the office numbers make the clearing trade look real but narrow: the convergence is the precondition for a transaction wave, and the capital constraints explain why the wave has not arrived. What the survey describes is a market where capital is willing to return, but only to assets where the micro-market analytics work and where buyers and sellers can both defend the price. Trophy assets and conversion-eligible buildings will clear first; the broad stack, still carrying the weight of pre-2022 valuations, will take longer.

For allocators, the ranking is less important than the gap between sentiment and activity. The preference data say real estate is once again where capital turns when other markets swing, and the capital availability data say the swings have not fully stopped. The result should be a slow, narrow recovery, with selectivity the dominant strategy and the meeting of the minds happening property by property. Muoio's own framing is the right one: sentiment improves, but activity remains in check. The convergence of buyer and seller preferences is worth watching, because the transactions will follow only where the price is defendable.