Global real estate transparency index 2026

JLL and LaSalle's 2026 Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) found that transaction volumes in the world's most transparent real estate markets rose 64% over the past two years, outpacing the rest of the 88 countries tracked.

• Highly transparent markets pull further ahead. Transaction volumes across the 13 countries in the "Highly Transparent" tier grew 20 percentage points faster over the past two years than the rest of the world, and this group now accounts for 56% of global income-producing real estate and over 80% of direct investment.
• Two-thirds of markets improved. Digitization of land registries, deeper data on alternative sectors and clearer building-efficiency standards drove gains in markets from Colombia to Kenya and Mexico to Qatar.
• Asia Pacific leads regional improvement, powered by India. India, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia and Thailand make up half of this year's top 10 global improvers.
• Gulf markets sustain a decade of progress. Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar rank among the most improved markets of the past ten years despite regional disruption.
• Alternative sectors, debt markets, AI and energy are the fastest-moving transparency frontiers. Data is improving for alternative sectors and credit markets, while over 90% of occupiers and investors now use AI tools and building energy-performance tracking is among this year's most improved factors globally.

The most transparent countries continue to pull away from the rest of the world. With the deepest capital markets, the clearest data on market fundamentals and the fastest technology adoption, this year's 13 "Highly Transparent" markets captured a disproportionate share of the recovery in transaction volumes. For investors, this means the largest, most liquid deals will keep concentrating in a narrowing set of markets, even as opportunity broadens elsewhere.

Gulf markets sustain momentum despite disruption
 

Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar are among this year's top improvers despite geopolitical disruption in the region. As part of its Vision 2030 strategy, Saudi Arabia is pursuing government digitization, including centralized databases for rents, sales prices and transaction volumes, enhanced standards for listed companies and a more robust regulatory framework for development. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have also made progress digitizing services and introducing new regulations, with the Dubai Land Department now a leader in providing real-time, publicly accessible real estate data.

India leads Asia Pacific's transparency gains
 

India, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia and Thailand account for half of the top 10 global improvers this year. India's largest cities have climbed further into the "Transparent" tier as digital infrastructure and listed-market activity expand, while cross-border investment into Asia Pacific has rebounded sharply, with transaction volumes in India and Vietnam hitting all-time highs. For occupiers, this means faster-improving data availability across the region should support more confident site-selection and lease-structuring decisions.

Investment into alternative property types now accounts for 20% of direct transaction volumes globally, double its share ten years ago, as capital broadens into infrastructure and integrated "real assets" strategies tied to AI, demographic change and the energy transition. But data availability for many of these sectors still lags core property types, with investors often dependent on public-market proxies or core benchmarks in place of asset-level operating data.

For investors and occupiers building exposure to real assets, four priorities stand out:
 

• Build a standardized internal data framework to capture core metrics alongside operational data such as capex and energy consumption.
• Integrate multidisciplinary expertise, pairing real estate teams with energy, technology and corporate-finance specialists for operationally intensive sectors like data centers.
• Conduct due diligence on surrounding infrastructure, from grid capacity to fiber connectivity, not just the asset itself.
• Formalize partnerships with specialist operators; global real estate M&A volumes are 42% above 2019 levels as investors build these capabilities.

Power availability and cost have moved from background considerations to primary drivers of site selection, development feasibility and asset performance. According to JLL Research, transparency scores for building-performance standards, in-use energy tracking and power provision are among the most improved elements in this year's index, as the International Energy Agency projects electricity demand could grow 40% or more globally by 2035.

European markets are leading through initiatives including REPowerEU, the Revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Elsewhere, Australia and Canada are introducing new building codes to lower energy demand and prepare for decentralized energy distribution, while a major revision to Japan's Energy Conservation Act will require all new buildings to meet stringent efficiency standards. A lengthening list of countries, including the UAE, India, Japan, Australia, Canada and Brazil, are also adopting requirements for companies to publicly disclose their strategy and risk management on sustainability, energy use and climate risk. For occupiers in power-intensive sectors like advanced manufacturing and data centers, mapping grid capacity and constraints is becoming as important as evaluating rent or labor access.

A broadening array of lenders, including banks, insurers, debt funds and private credit providers, is driving the recovery in transaction activity, and transparency in credit markets has deepened alongside it. JLL's Credit Intensity Index now incorporates more than US$3.7 trillion of lender quotes, while new benchmarks such as the NCREIF-CREFC Open-End Debt Fund Index in the United States and an expanded Bayes Business School survey in the United Kingdom are giving investors clearer visibility into pricing and lending terms.

Despite this progress, the market remains fragmented. Investors and occupiers should prepare for greater regulatory scrutiny, conduct enhanced lender due diligence beyond headline interest rates and focus closely on execution risk for specialized assets, since risk increasingly sits with the sponsor rather than the market itself.

AI adoption has accelerated sharply since the last GRETI in 2024, with over 90% of occupiers and investors now deploying AI tools, according to JLL Research. JLL's proprietary platform analyzes more than 2 million properties and transactions spanning 20 years to surface capital markets opportunities, while governments including Singapore, with its 3D digital twin of the city-state, are using AI to simulate development impact and optimize energy use.

At the same time, three of the top four challenges identified in JLL's 2026 Future of Work survey are technology-related: cybersecurity and data privacy, AI disruption and uncertainty over AI's impact on space requirements. For investors, this means developing market- and asset-level intelligence on AI exposure is increasingly important as a complement to tracking traditional demand drivers, while occupiers should prioritize role-based permissions, audit trails and human approval steps as agentic systems take on greater responsibility.

Regulatory changes, new technologies and rising wealth are opening commercial real estate to a much broader base of retail and pension investors, a structural shift set to reshape the industry's capital landscape. In the United States, Department of Labor guidance is paving the way for 401(k) plans to include private assets in target-date funds. In the United Kingdom, the Mansion House Compact is encouraging defined contribution pension schemes to allocate billions to private markets, supported by new fund structures like the Long-Term Asset Fund (LTAF). And the European Union's ELTIF 2.0 regulation has made long-term investment funds far more accessible to retail investors. JLL analysis points to the potential for over US$800 billion of incremental capital available for real estate by 2030 from these sources alone.

This new capital is flowing largely through semi-liquid and evergreen fund structures designed for individual savers' liquidity needs. For this democratization to succeed, investors and data providers will need to strengthen valuation methodologies, standardize performance reporting for a less specialized investor base and design fund structures that disclose liquidity terms, including redemption gates, clearly and consistently.

The JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) is JLL and LaSalle's biennial benchmark of real estate market transparency, first published in 1999. The 2026 edition, the 14th, combines quantitative market data with a survey of JLL and LaSalle's global business network to score 88 countries and territories and 146 city markets across 260 factors, grouped into five transparency tiers ranging from Highly Transparent to Opaque. The index is intended for cross-border investors, lenders, developers and occupiers, as well as government and industry bodies benchmarking market conditions internationally.

The Global Real Estate Transparency Index is based on a combination of quantitative market data and survey results across 88 countries and 146 city markets. This year we have expanded the list of alternatives sectors and revised the list of Sustainability topics covered, with new questions on building energy use and efficiency reporting; energy performance standards and benchmarks; building emissions databases and standards; and climate risk reporting. In total, 260 individual transparency measures are divided into 14 topic areas, which are then grouped and weighted into six broad sub-indices:
 

• Performance Measurement – 25%
• Market Fundamentals – 16.5%
• Governance of Listed Vehicles – 10%
• Regulatory and Legal – 23.5%
• Transaction Process – 15%
• Sustainability – 10%
   

The Index scores markets on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1.00 being the highest possible score). Depending on their overall performance, markets are assigned to one of five transparency tiers.

If you are a JLL client and would like to receive a copy of the Global Real Estate Transparency Index rankings in excel format, please contact us.