Sunny investment climate

LA has emerged as leader of the pack of city ‘Contenders’ that have been closing the gap on the ‘Big Seven’ (London, New York, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul), established world cities that have, traditionally, been the most successful in attracting global real estate investment. These contenders are all starting to acquire many – or most – of the attributes of the top cities: gateway connectivity to their national and continental economies, effective metropolitan scale and market size, the trust of global capital, a diverse talent pool and multiple clustered specializations. LA’s relative affordability and availability of product in comparison to other global gateway markets is key to its appeal for investors, especially foreign ones, says Pranav Sethuraman, Global Capital Markets Research with JLL. “Strength and diversity of the local economy” also plays a part, he adds.