With transaction volumes down, price discovery largely missing, valuations heavily off, and a challenging interest rate environment, a natural question is when CRE markets would again pick up.

Many in the industry have been talking for more than a year about all the capital sitting on the sidelines, waiting to make an entry, possibly looking for distressed deals. One way to know when decisions will start to be made is by watching when the money starts to move from one pocket to another.

The money has started to move. Brookfield Asset Management has been pulling in investments at a significant rate. In its earnings release on Monday, the company reported that it had raised $61 billion in capital in the first nine months of 2023, $26 billion of which came in during the third quarter. The company also announced that it had $102 billion of dry powder "available to deploy into attractive market opportunities."