A new survey has shown that London is the world’s top city for investment in commercial real estate. In the survey, London beat off competition from such global business luminaries as New York and Washington D.C.  London ended the survey with a score that was 31 points higher than the second-placed Washington D.C. due to recent mortgage improvements and offerings, and was a full 40 points ahead of New York, which finished the survey in third place. according to the results of the survey by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

The results mark a real turnaround for London, which found itself in second place in the same survey last year-some four points behind Washington and a mere two points ahead of New York. According to investors and analysts, part of the reason lie in the belief that the price of commercial real estate in London has already reached bottom when compared particularly to price in the US which have not. According to the chief executive of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, James Fetgatter, at the current time, London presents the advantage of a re-priced market to investors, and this re-pricing began much sooner than that seen in other cities. Interestingly, the survey, which takes into account the association’s 200 members who own over $200 billion of real estate worldwide, concluded that the US is still regarded as the most secure real estate environment globally.

This belief, however, has been eroded, with merely 44% of those responding to the survey believing that the US market is currently the most secure, this figure being down from 53% in 2008 and 57% in 2007. It is, in fact, the very first occasion on which the figure has dropped under 50%. The survey’s respondents voted Germany as the globe’s second most secure market.

Fifty-one percent of respondents thought that conditions in the US were most fertile for capital appreciation both from domestic and overseas interests, with the UK coming in second and China third. With regard to the top emerging markets, China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and India came out on top.

Two-thirds of respondents stated that they were looking at upping their US investments during 2010, raising equity investments by 62% and debt investments by 83% over levels seen in 2009. Respondents also believed that global equity investments for 2010 would be 46% over 2009 levels, but 20% lower in terms of debt investment.