President Donald Trump has always felt passionately about real estate.
“It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful,” the former luxury property developer and TV personality once said. “It’s artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.”
And now, as we head into 2026, analysts and industry executives are starting to feel pretty good about the commercial real estate sector.
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) said in its Global Real Estate Outlook that “following a challenging year, the outlook for 2026 is more positive.”
“Improving market fundamentals, including positive economic growth across most major markets, easing trade concerns, moderating inflation and lower interest rates will contribute to a more stable operating environment,” the commercial real estate and investment management company shared.
The environment for real estate capital markets strengthened notably in the second half of 2025, and momentum is expected to build further in 2026. JLL said that it expects debt markets to remain very active and for lender appetite to continue to broaden across property sectors.
“The convergence of economic, technological, and social forces leaves organizations across the globe navigating a complex and evolving environment, with the commercial real estate industry on the precipice of substantial—and exciting—transformation,” JLL said.
“The AI infrastructure boom will continue to drive demand for data centers and leasing demand is expected to strengthen across many markets and property types in 2026.”
Office and industrial take-up—the total square footage of office or industrial space newly leased or sold to end-users—is projected to increase globally, with growth in most major countries, including the U.S., India, and the UK.
Christian Ulbrich, JLL’s president and CEO, had some positive vibes going on during last month’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts.
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“The macro environment remains dynamic, the economic outlook and forward indicators for transactional markets have stabilized and improved during the quarter,” he said.
“Both occupier and investor clients are motivated to transact. Looking at our largest market, the U.S., this was reflected in broad-based activity across capital markets, office and industrial leasing as well as an improvement in large deal activity.”
“Investors, in particular, are increasingly shifting to risk-on mode supported by healthy and robust debt markets,” he added.
American Tower (AMT), which owns, operates, and develops communications real estate, beat Wall Street’s quarterly forecasts and boosted its guidance for the year.
“The tower industry benefits when its customers become healthier,” Steven Vondran, the company’s president and CEO, told analysts in October. “Financially strong customers tend to invest more heavily in their networks to keep pace with demand for mobile data consumption, which in turn drives greater demand for our best-in-class tower portfolio.”
“Demand for mobile data, the backbone of our business model, continues to rise at a torrent pace,” he added.
Equinix (EQIX) also posted strong quarterly results, as the company, which owns and operates data centers, closed over 4,400 deals with more than 3,400 customers.
“This volume reflects continued demand for a wide variety of latency-sensitive AI and non-AI workloads, supporting significantly increased data residency and sovereignty requirements, and delivering seamless connectivity to distributed data sources,” Adair Fox-Martin, CEO and president, said during the company’s earnings call.
“Our strong performance in Q3 coupled with our strategic efforts to continue to secure land for future growth in our major metros is setting the stage for 2026 and beyond.”
Deloitte’s 2026 Commercial Real Estate Outlook highlighted a cautious optimism in the industry, “as global macroeconomic volatility, policy uncertainty, and elevated interest rates have tempered the pace of recovery.”
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“The commercial real estate property markets have seemingly turned a corner on recent performance downturns,” the firm said. “Globally, investment volume declines reduced for six consecutive quarters, and in the first quarter of 2025, notched the first year-over-year increase since mid-2022.”
The construction industry also has reason to be cautiously optimistic, according to Nationwide’s year-end construction industry report.
“Construction activity outside of data centers is expected to stay soft into early 2026 as tariffs and consumer demand uncertainty continue to weigh on business investment,” the study said.
“However, easing policy uncertainty and federal tax incentives may encourage a rebound in construction spending in the back half of 2026, though reduced government funding poses risks for public infrastructure projects.”
One person who’s not thrilled about all the data center activity is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Sanders said he will push for a moratorium on AI data center construction in an effort to “give democracy a chance to catch up” amid concerns about the “unregulated sprint” to develop the technology.
“AI and robotics are the most transformative technologies in the history of humanity and will have a profound impact on the lives of every man, woman and child in our country,” Sanders said in a video posted to X.
“We need all of our people, all of our people involved in determining the future of AI, and not just a handful of multibillionaires.”
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on Dec 17, 2025, where it first appeared in the Real Estate section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.