Canada dropped a notch in the rankings of the world’s largest professionally managed real estate markets last year, even while regaining asset value since 2024. MSCI’s newly released 2025 overview of global market size pegs the value of Canadian investment property at USD $387 million (CAD $531 million as of Dec. 31, 2025), slotting it at 10th among the 38 national markets surveyed. That’s down from ninth in 2024 when the Canada’s professionally managed universe was valued at USD $375 million.
Canada was in sync with the general bounce-back trend across the broad base of 38 countries, which saw total market value climb up to USD $13.5 trillion after three consecutive years of decline. All but three countries contributed to the USD $1.1 trillion year-over-year increase from 2024, with gains ranging from USD $225 billion in the United States to USD $1 billion in Hungary and Slovakia.
MSCI analysts highlight growth in transaction volume, the ongoing shift from office to industrial in portfolio composition and the notable uptick in data centres as a subset of the latter. Globally, the average turnover rate of investment properties was 6.9 per cent, up from 6.2 per cent in 2024. Canada lagged a little behind the average at 6.4 per cent, while the U.S. outpaced it at 8.8 per cent. South Korea registered the most deal activity with a 12.4 per cent turnover rate.
“Real estate has weathered several difficult years since the pandemic reshaped the workplace and the way society interacts. This year’s data suggests the worst may be behind us,” observes Shaleen Khatod, MSCI’s global head of real assets. “But the recovery is not a simple return to where the market was. The market investors are re-entering is not the one they left.”
The U.S. continued to dominate as a share of value, accounting for 37.6 per cent of the total, but lost ground as it slipped from its nearly 39 per cent weighting in 2024. The same pattern holds true for Canada, which saw its share of the total weight fall 15 basis points (bps), from 3.02 per cent in 2024 to 2.87 per cent in 2025.
That occurred as currency values appreciated against the U.S. dollar in all but three countries, and most notably in Europe. The Canadian dollar’s year-over-year improvement was roughly on par with the 4.9 per cent global average, while the value of the Swedish krona rose nearly 20 per cent, the Swiss franc climbed about 14 per cent and the euro gained 13 per cent.
Jostling in the market size rankings since 2024 bumped Switzerland up two places, to eighth, supplanting both Hong Kong (ninth) and Canada (10th) in 2025. The United Kingdom and China switched slots in 2025, with the U.K. moving up to second following a USD $91 billion gain in value and China falling to third with a USD $18 billion decline. Japan, Germany, France and Australia stayed the course — respectively ranked fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh — in both 2024 and 2025, and Sweden remained in 11th, but with a 39 bps gain in market weight in 2025.
Office was the predominant investment property sector in 2025, equating to 26.8 per cent of total assets. Still, that’s a further erosion from 27.2 per cent in 2024 and 28.9 per cent in 2023. In contrast, industrial’s share grew to 20.5 per cent, up from 18.9 per cent in 2024. The remainder splits out at: 22.7 per cent residential; 18. 2 per cent retail; and 8.3 per cent for hotel and health care.
The breakdown is significantly different in the Americas, where residential properties account for 30.1 per cent of investment assets, followed by industrial at 24.3 per cent and office at 18.1 per cent. Nevertheless, the U.S. hosts the largest office market among the 38 countries, representing about 25 per cent of all office assets.
MSCI analysts suggest the evolution of portfolio weighting fits into a larger economic context, and point to still more macroeconomic influences — artificial intelligence, climate risk and the shift away from fossil fuels — that seem set to intensify.
“These are not short-term rotations. They reflect a structural change in what investors believe the physical economy is worth,” Khatod maintains.
