AFIRE members voted Houston as the No. 4 market in the U.S. for real estate investment.

By Joe Van Acker

Move over, Beantown – Houston bumped Boston from its No. 4 spot in the nation for real estate investment dollars in the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate’s (AFIRE) annual survey.

Texas’ most populous city also passed Los Angeles and Seattle to grab a position in America’s top five list, and also rankedt No. 5 worldwide. According to the Houston Business Journal, this is quite an accomplishment for the city – was unranked internationally in last year’s survey.

This marks the first time since the survey’s 2001 inception that the U.S. took four of the top five spots, with the exception of London, which ranked second worldwide.

New York was again ranked first in the U.S. and globally, but James Fetgatter, chief executive of AFIRE, says that emerging economic drivers, such as technology and energy jobs, could shift investors’ attention from traditional markets to cities like Houston.

“The strong endorsement of both San Francisco and Houston by our members in this year’s survey directly reflects the propensity for real estate to follow jobs,” Fetgatter said in a release.

AFIRE reported that the U.S. was “overwhelmingly” chosen first for providing opportunities for capital appreciation, topping Brazil, which received 17 percent of the vote. None of the respondents reported that they intended to decrease their U.S. portfolios, and 81 percent said that they would increase their U.S. investments. About one-third said they planned a “major net  increase.”

Also of note from the survey: thirty-nine percent of respondents said they were more optimistic than last year about the U.S. real estate market; and, multifamily and industrial properties held their respective No. 1 and No. 2 rankings for preferred property types.