NEW YORK CITY-The first half of the year was chock-full of surprises, according to Real Capital Analytics and Integra Realty Resources, which jointly revealed a summary of the nation's performance—including a comparison of the U.S. to other spots on the globe—from January to June of 2013 during a presentation Thursday in Midtown Manhattan.

Overall in commercial real estate, the US fared well. And in some interesting turns, new sectors became ripe for investment while other tried-and-true property types may have topped out; investors weren't terribly jumpy over rising interest rates and there have been unusual shifts in the market leaders versus laggards, according to analysts.

“We've had a good first half, transaction activity was up about 25% over 2012,” said Bob White, president, RCA. “It's going to be tough to match that in the second half of the year. The activity at the end of 2012 because of the capital gains tax year pushed a lot of activity to early 2013. Now, we're seeing a slowing in the rate of acceleration but I don't think that's evidence of any impact of rising interest rates; we haven't seen the market respond to the run up of rates in May and June. A handful of deals fell through but that actually made investors eager to get deals done, in order to lock in rates.”