NEW YORK CITY-Pension plans will remain the top source of US real estate equity in 2012, according to a new survey from Goodwin Procter. The “Real Estate Capital Markets Snapshot 2012” surveyed a cross section of participants in the commercial real estate capital market to glean insight on the year ahead.

Of those who responded, the bulk--35.3%--identified as investment managers or fund sponsors, while the next largest group self-identified as owner/operators.

Robert Insolia, co-chair of the Real Estate Private Investment Funds Practice at Goodwin Procter, says that the survey results reinforce the role that pension funds, long major players, are anticipated to continue to play going forward.

“Historically, pension funds have represented a very significant source of capital for real estate investment, in part due to high portfolio allocations to real estate,” he says. “This includes foreign pension funds.”

And in fact almost half of the investment managers and fund sponsors who responded to the firm’s survey said that they anticipate that sovereign wealth funds will be their top source of new equity capital this year.

With the turmoil in the global economic market, however, the inflow of capital from pension funds could, in fact, be impacted.

“Global economic uncertainty may well affect the flow of capital into real estate investment vehicles,” Insolia says, “not because there are fewer dollars to invest, but because the fallout of these events may have a contagious effect on markets outside of Europe, slowing economic recovery here in the US and globally.”

The top commercial real estate investment opportunity respondents identified for the year ahead was recapitalizations. Winners on this front may be aggressive managers, who Insolia says can identify ownership opportunities and add “value to real estate assets through creative property management.” He adds that they are the ones likely to see the greatest returns achieved by recapping existing investments.