Opportunity funds backed primarily by U.S. pension funds bought 60% of the U.S. properties sold by Japanese institutions last year, according to the E&Y Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group's annual report on Japanese Disinvestment of U.S. Real Estate.
Official estimates of Japan's soured real estate loans total $400 billion, which is more than four times the $90 billion in troubled real estate assets sold by the Resolution Trust Corp. Japanese owners and lenders are expected to sell between $40 billion and $50 billion of U.S. property in the next five years, according to E&Y Kenneth Leventhal.
