Thailand’s island resort city of Phuket is increasingly attracting luxury-focused hotel developers and high-net-worth individuals deciding to call it home, as tourism rebounds from pandemic lows.

CoStar data showed Phuket’s full-year hotel occupancy rose from 46.7% in 2022 to 69.8% in 2024. Ultra-luxury resorts and brands such as Amanpuri, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, Andara Resorts & Villas, Trisara and Six Senses Yao Noi, together with elite seaside beach clubs such as Café Del Mar and Catch Beach Club, have attracted wealthy, well-heeled travelers.

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American entertainment and production giant Universal and the United Kingdom government announced that the first European Universal theme park will be built in the United Kingdom.

Universal Destinations & Experiences, a unit of Comcast NBC Universal, said it intends to build and operate the park in Bedford, England, about an hour north of London, pending planning approvals. The development is proposed for the 476-acre site of the former Kempston Hardwick brickworks near Bedford. Universal purchased the site in 2023.

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French commercial real estate investment increased 67% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, presenting encouraging signs of rebounding property demand.

Nationwide deal volume reached €3.4 billion in the first quarter, according to data firm GIE ImmoStat. CBRE France managing director Nicolas Verdillon cautioned “not to declare victory too quickly,” as overall performance was still 28% below the five-year average and two major retail deals accounted for more than a third of total volume.

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Germany’s first-quarter commercial property transaction volume fell 7% to 9% short of year-earlier figures, according to tracking from various analysts. But brokers agreed that offices led other categories for deal momentum as logistics transactions slowed.

Figures from CBRE, Colliers, JLL and Savills showed total nationwide volume amounted to around €5.2 billion in the first quarter. Brokers were unanimous in reporting that offices have regained first place among categories as deals reached €1.7 billion in the first quarter, while logistics transactions fell to €1.3 billion due to a lack of deals in the triple-digit million euro range.

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Ongoing trade tensions with the United States are having a chilling effect on the sale of condominium apartments and single-family houses in Canada, according to a report from one of the country’s largest banks.

More prospective homebuyers retreated to the sidelines in March as tariffs on Canadian goods entering the U.S. took effect and Canada implements trade duties of its own in retaliation, according to the Royal Bank of Canada. “This drove home resales down materially for a second straight time in many markets, reaching cyclical lows in southern Ontario, which is especially vulnerable to trade turbulence,” bank economist Robert Hogue said in a report.

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In an aging, empty federal office building in Washington, D.C., members of Congress argued over the best approach to manage the government’s large real estate portfolio, as a watchdog agency said new data is expected to be collected this year that could assist in major decisions on the properties.

An official with the General Accounting Office warned that while shedding underused properties can be a positive, and the momentum President Trump created in his effort to reduce the federal property footprint has disrupted existing inertia, deliberate planning is imperative. Moving too quickly could create financial risk, in part because several federal buildings have active tenants that could be costly to relocate.

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This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.