Larger Deals Accelerate CRE Investment
The commercial real estate investment market is recovering, but the rebound is not showing up evenly across the numbers. Investors put substantially more capital to work in the second quarter even as the number of properties changing hands remained below year-ago levels.
Altus Group’s Q2 2026 US CRE Investment & Transactions Quarterly Report found that single-property transaction count increased 6.7% from the first quarter but remained 1.2% below a year earlier. Dollar volume climbed 11.3% quarter over quarter and 9.4% year over year, while square footage traded rose 10.3% and 4.4%, respectively.
Over the trailing four quarters, transaction count rose 6% from a year earlier, dollar volume increased 16.3%, and square footage traded gained 12%.
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The longer-term figures make the distinction even clearer. The market is becoming more liquid, but the amount of capital moving through it is recovering considerably faster than the number of properties being sold. Pricing is rising across most property types.
More Capital Is Chasing Fewer Deals
Quarter-over-quarter transaction count gains were broad: office up 9.9%, retail 9.3%, hospitality 8.8%, multifamily 7.1%, and industrial 5.1%. Commercial General, which includes mixed-use properties, was the exception, with transactions declining 4%.
Year-over-year comparisons were weaker: hospitality rose 5.7%, industrial edged up 0.3%, while Commercial General fell 5.3%, multifamily declined 3%, office was down 1.7%, and retail slipped 0.3%.
Dollar volume told a stronger story. Commercial General volume surged 52.4% year over year and 25.7% from the first quarter. Industrial rose 26% annually and 22.2% quarterly, while office volume increased 18.9% from a year earlier and 11.7% sequentially. Even retail, where transaction count was essentially flat from a year ago, posted a 9% increase in dollar volume.
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Multifamily stood apart.
Its dollar volume fell 11.9% year over year despite a 3.8% quarterly increase, and square footage traded declined 12.5% annually.
The disconnect between deal count and dollar volume is one of the report’s most important findings. It indicates that aggregate investment volume is no longer dependent solely on getting more properties across the closing table. Larger assets and larger transactions are accounting for more of the capital being deployed.
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In Commercial General, the share of transaction value from deals above $10 million increased 24.1 percentage points year over year and 13.7 points from the first quarter, reaching 53.2%.
Pricing Is Rising With Investment Volume
Across all property types, median pricing reached $131 per square foot in the second quarter, up from $128 in the first quarter and $121 a year earlier. That is a 2.3% quarterly increase and an 8.6% annual gain.
Industrial recorded the strongest annual increase among major sectors, with median pricing up 13.2% to $113 per square foot.
