Australia appears frequently on the radar screens of U.S. real estate investors. In 2005 Australia was ranked second, behind Germany, in the list of countries expected to have the most active buyers of U.S. real estate, according to the annual Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) survey. In 2006 Australia advanced to first place. Some 54 percent of the AFIRE survey respondents believed that Australians would be the most active investors in the United States — a remarkable profile for a country that accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent of the global institutional real estate universe, according to Pramerica Real Estate Investors’ A Bird’s Eye View of Global Real Estate Markets: 2012, or around US$656 billion, approximately one-tenth the size of the U.S. real estate market.

The global financial crisis that commenced in mid-2007 marked the end, at least temporarily, of Australia’s ambitions as a global re