GRIP: 05Feb2026 From Soft Landings to Wellness Booms – How Global Property Is Repricing Risk (Outside the US)
the edge comes not from calling “up or down” globally, but from knowing which city, sub‑segment and structure is quietly repricing risk in your favour.
Outside the US, early 2026 real estate feels less like a crisis and more like a re‑pricing of risk. Canada and China are still unwinding past excesses, while India and the MENA wellness‑luxury corridor are where growth capital is quietly rotating. Global house price data points to modest overall growth with big dispersion: select emerging markets and a handful of European cities are rising, but mature markets in North America and East Asia remain under pressure.
Canada’s Toronto market is the clearest live case study in an affordability purge rather than a crash. Home sales have fallen sharply on a month‑on‑month basis, with several months of declines now behind them, and benchmark prices are drifting lower after years of stretched valuations. Local boards and major forecasts still describe this as a soft landing: buyers stepping back to reassess macro and rate risk, volumes likely improving later in 2026 as financing costs ease, but prices moving sideways to slightly down in the most overstretched neighbourhoods.
China, by contrast, has moved from “temporary slump” to structural downshift in most outlooks: analysts expect new‑home prices to continue slipping through 2026, support measures remain calibrated rather than explosive, and the policy stance looks more like “manage a long descent” than restart a credit‑fuelled boom. That is nudging more Chinese capital outward—into Southeast Asia, MENA and residency‑linked schemes like Malaysia’s MM2H—rather than back into domestic off‑plan apartments.
India is one of the few large markets running a convincing, end‑user‑driven up‑cycle. It has broken into the global top tier for house price growth, backed by strong volumes across the top cities, rising incomes, urbanisation and an easing rate environment. Inventory metrics have broadly held up even as new launches increased, suggesting real absorption rather than speculative churn.
In parallel, MENA—especially Dubai—is turning wellness into the new waterfront. Wellness real estate has more than doubled in size since before the pandemic and is projected to grow at mid‑teens annual rates, with MENA among the fastest‑growing regions globally. Developers are marketing communities around air and water quality, green space, biophilic design and integrated health amenities, and data shows those homes and offices securing tangible price and rent premiums over conventional stock.
Across Europe and Asia‑Pacific, the big story is a shortage of the right space, not space in general. New office development and completions are dropping to multi‑year lows just as demand for prime, ESG‑compliant buildings in cities like London, Paris and Frankfurt recovers with easing rates and stabilising economies. That is accelerating a split between obsolete, energy‑inefficient stock that suffers from rising vacancy and pricing pressure, and Grade‑A, green assets that see firmer rents and strong competition. In logistics, subdued new deliveries against solid leasing demand—particularly in core corridors and data‑centre‑adjacent locations—are producing a similar pattern.
Layered on top is “mobility capital”: residency‑linked and investor‑visa programmes in places like Malaysia, the Gulf and parts of Europe are quietly turning long‑stay, lifestyle‑oriented buyers into a structural demand pipe for local property.
For investors and storytellers, global non‑US real estate in 2026 is a tapestry of divergent micro stories rather than a single macro headline. Canada and China sit in various stages of correction, India is climbing on domestic demand with real spine, MENA wellness is institutionalising lifestyle and health as investable features, and Europe/Asia‑Pac are tightening the supply of truly modern, compliant space even as older stock is repriced. The shared backdrop—easing but still elevated rates, slower global growth—pushes each market to a different equilibrium.
For GRIP, that divergence is the opportunity: the edge comes not from calling “up or down” globally, but from knowing which city, sub‑segment and structure is quietly repricing risk in your favour.
