Transparency has long been viewed as a sign that a commercial real estate market has matured, but new analysis from JLL suggests it is now a prerequisite for attracting capital. Matthew McAuley, senior director of market intelligence and strategy at JLL, told Connect CRE that as disruption and complexity become embedded in the global economy, investors increasingly require clear, reliable information before committing funds.
McAuley, together with colleague Dominic Silman, co-authored JLL’s latest Global Real Estate Transparency Index, 2026: Navigating Risk and Opportunity in an Era of Disruption. The research tracks transparency across countries and shows that transaction volumes in the world’s most transparent real estate markets rose 64% over the past two years, outpacing the 86 other markets covered by the study. According to McAuley, the 13 most transparent markets now account for 56% of global income-producing real estate and more than 80% of global direct investment.
JLL’s work links this performance to earlier price discovery and the ability to invest at scale, which allow transparent markets to see transaction activity recover more quickly. McAuley noted that transparency is not just about compiling more data points; it also determines how quickly investors can understand local dynamics, price individual assets and execute capital deployment strategies.
The report highlights that investors are increasingly allocating to alternative property sectors within markets they already know and that show positive structural tailwinds. These alternative sectors have grown to represent 20% of global direct transaction volumes, double their share a decade ago. Yet data coverage in many of these categories is limited, with fragmented stock and fewer trades. McAuley said this often forces investors to rely on public-market indicators or benchmarks derived from traditional core property types as proxies for pricing and performance.
Similar transparency challenges are emerging in real estate credit. JLL’s Credit Intensity Index now draws on more than $3.7 trillion of lender quotes to provide a clearer picture of lending conditions. McAuley said credit strategies are appealing for their return profile and position in the capital stack, but cross-border investors face a fragmented landscape that requires extensive due diligence.
He pointed to uneven deal-level disclosure outside publicly reported segments such as the U.S. CMBS market and substantial variation in the availability of data on CRE debt by country. Regulatory, licensing and reporting frameworks also differ widely, including between countries that share a single currency, creating additional work for investors seeking to underwrite and monitor exposure across multiple jurisdictions.
McAuley noted that as more capital is allocated to real estate, the most transparent markets have become even more dominant, with “Highly Transparent” and “Transparent” jurisdictions drawing over 98% of global capital. The report concludes that these markets benefit from deeper capital pools, better understanding of market dynamics and stronger allocation flows into expanding segments of the sector.
At the same time, the authors call for improvements in valuation methodologies and more standardized reporting to serve a broader, less specialized investor base. They also emphasize the importance of clearly communicating liquidity terms, including the use of redemption gates. McAuley said greater transparency ultimately serves investors, lenders and occupiers by clarifying operating conditions, enabling earlier price discovery and helping market participants navigate risk and identify opportunity.
