From: bostonherald.com

Image from: PHILIP BREWER

Boston is the country’s third-most desired city for foreign institutional real estate investors — ranking behind No. 1 New York and Los Angeles, a new survey says.

The Hub moved up from last year’s fifth-place tie with Seattle in the survey of Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate members who hail from 22 countries. Seattle ranked fourth this year, followed by San Francisco, which held the No. 3 spot last year.

Ninety-five percent of the survey respondents said they would maintain or increase their U.S. investments this year, although just more than a third said their outlooks about the U.S. market had become more pessimistic. The U.S. maintained its top ranking as the country providing the most stable and secure real estate investments and the best opportunity for capital precipitation by wide, double-digit margins. More than half of survey respondents said Brexit would have a positive effect on the U.S. real estate market.

“We’re a hot, hot market,” said David Begelfer, CEO of NAIOP Massachusetts, a commercial real estate development trade group. “Obviously we’ve been having a very strong economy here in Boston, so it’s very desirable.”

Purchases by foreign buyers in Boston’s central business district totaled nearly $1.25 billion in the first three quarters of 2016, up from $724.3 million in the same period of 2015, according to commercial real estate services firm Savills Studley. Foreign investments in Boston have totaled $9.15 billion since 2012, growing from $261.2 million that year to $3.07 billion in 2015.