It's a good time to be in commercial real estate, at least according to DLA Piper's Global Real Estate Annual State of the Market Survey. With trouble in the world and the economy, CRE attracts a lot of attention not in spite of concerns, but because of them.

"People tend to like hard assets both in times of inflation and when there's geopolitical conflict, so  I think all of that bodes well for real estate on a macro level," John Sullivan, US chair and global co-chair of DLA Piper's real estate practice, told Nareit's REIT Report podcast. "And I think it means that the private equity funds and the endowments and the big institutional and governmental non-US investors are going to continue to have a big appetite for commercial real estate."

The survey saw "not only a remarkable resurgence across the CRE sector, but also increased bullishness as leaders look to the future," as the report noted. "While general bullishness remains roughly consistent with our 2021 report at 73 percent, more respondents in 2022 have a higher level of confidence for the real estate industry's next 12 months. The increased optimism relative to 2020—when just 21 percent expected a bull market—is significant."