Three members of Citi’s global real estate research team—Nick Joseph in the United States, Aaron Guy in the U.K., and Howard Penny in Australia—joined the latest episode of the Nareit REIT Report podcast to share their thoughts on regional outlooks and sector performance.

Macro fundamentals, interest rates, and geopolitical sentiment are mixed globally, resulting in stock preferences that are heavily driven by regional teams’ micro analysis, Joseph said.

The key driver behind Citi’s list of most preferred stocks in 2025 is the presence of positive rental growth, with rental growth weakness and high valuation the key reasons for the least preferred subsectors. Sector preferences are not globally consistent, Joseph stressed, highlighting the presence of significant local supply and demand drivers.

Regionally, Citi is most positive on the U.S., Australia, Europe, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and more cautious on China, Latin America, India, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand.