By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Commercial real estate sales
worldwide last year rose to a record $759 billion but slackened
in the second half of 2007, as the credit crisis crimped
transactions, according to a report by real estate research
firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
The report, released on Thursday, also said sales are
expected to be lower this year than in 2007, which was $59
billion higher than in 2006.
In the first half of 2007, real estate investment globally
reached $394 billion, the report said. But the second half saw
investment slow to $365 billion, as activity dimmed in the
United States and the United Kingdom, which comprise more than
half of global real estate sales.
“The very strong performance in the first half helped
overall investment to exceed 2006 - itself a record year,”
Tony Horrell, chief executive of European Capital Markets at
Jones Lang LaSalle, said in a statement.
Cross-border sales — in which at least one party of the
buyer or seller is not from the country in which the property
is located — accounted for 46 percent of global transactions,
up from 43 percent in 2006.
