Why The Rest of the World is Pouring Billions Into the U.S. Real Estate Market

Yngve Slyngstad and Peter Ballon aren't well-known names in the U.S. investment community, but their decisions are having a multi-billion dollar effect on a key asset class. These men head up organizations that manage Sovereign Wealth Funds in Norway and Canada, respectively, and each one is now scouring the United States for premium real estate opportunities. 

Norway's Slyngstad, for example, told Bloomberg News this past December that his nation will invest up to $11 billion in high-quality U.S. office buildings.

Canadian investors already have a head start. They've deployed $9 billion in U.S. funds during the past few years, much of it at the behest of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, with plans to keep investing aggressively in U.S. real estate in the next few years. Like Norway, Canadian government investors also prefer high-end office buildings.

Follow the money trail, and you can see that it's a great time to be an investor in this kind of real estate. This is actually what Carla Pasternak, chief strategist of High-Yield Investing, has been telling her eaders for months. She's even called it the "most dramatic turnaround in U.S. history."

With this clear trend in mind, here are three U.S. real estate investment funds that should greatly benefit from this foreign flow of funds into the country.

1. The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX)
My colleague Michael Vodicka recently profiled this firm for its aggressive move into distressed residential real estate. But did you know that Blackstone also owns more than $50 billion in traditional real estate, including high-end office complexes?

At a recent conference, Blackstone's Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate and a board of directors member, recently said the company intends to take advantage of the ripe market conditions, aiming to fetch high prices for some trophy properties. "The other trend that will be helpful for us to exit some of the larger things we own, particularly the higher-quality assets in the gateway cities, is the rise of the sovereign wealth fund." (more)

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