RICS Monitor: Will Macro Uncertainty Linger Through the 2nd Half of 2025?

September 8, 2025

Despite ongoing economic volatility, CRE sentiment has held steady during the second quarter, RICS’ Tarrant Parsons told CPE’s Laura Valean.

Macroeconomic instability and tariff talks were front and center in the second quarter, yet the commercial real estate sector showed a surprising degree of resilience, the latest Global Commercial Property Monitor released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London found.

Strength was notable in the Middle East and Africa, closely followed by the Americas. The U.S. actually saw nine consecutive positive quarterly occupier demand readings, the same source shows. Only 28 percent of the U.S. survey respondents feel like their commercial real estate market is in a downturn, compared to 50 percent of the Canadian participants. An improvement in credit conditions appears to be underway in the U.S., and the only negative trend is the drop in international investment.

Meanwhile, market conditions remain generally difficult across Asia Pacific, but there are some tentative signs that some of the negativity is beginning to fade. In Europe, investment sentiment is in the neutral zone after being negative for a long time—partly due to improving credit conditions. The Middle East and Africa continues to show an expansion in demand, but trends are not as buoyant as they were in previous quarters.

What should you expect going forward? “Many of the current themes that are causing uncertainty at the macro level are most likely going to linger through the second half of 2025,” said Tarrant Parsons, head of market analytics, in the latest RICS Monitor podcast episode.

Here’s what else he told Commercial Property Executive Senior Editor Laura Valean: