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International investors with a total of US$2 trillion ($2.34 trillion) in funds have put New Zealand in their top-10 list of Asia-Pacific real estate investment targets.

A survey out this month from the Association of Non-Listed Real Estate Investors put New Zealand on its list for the first time, said Justin Kean, JLL New Zealand's head of research and capital markets.

New Zealand was ranked eighth.

"The association represents investors with a total portfolio of some US$2 trillion. If international investors allocated just 1 per cent of their assets to the New Zealand market, we would see $20 billion of capital head this way."

Kean said about $2 billion of commercial real estate going for $5 million-plus was sold throughout New Zealand.

That survey comes after Chapman Tripp said last week that more foreign buyers were likely to make bids for New Zealand assets this year with China at the forefront.

The law firm has released its view on trends and insights into New Zealand mergers and acquisitions and has picked foreign investment as an important trend in 2014.

Kean said international investors saw New Zealand as a key Asia-Pacific location.

"The economy in New Zealand has seen a good organic economic recovery kick in in the last 18 months. Positive pressure is warranting a firming of cap rates which is being driven by a weight of both local and now international capital.

"Institutional investors are back in a buying mode and this means that foreign wealth will start finding its way into the New Zealand property market," he said.

This year Japan ranks in first place as the most desirable place to buy property, with Australia second.

Previously, New Zealand was in the "other countries" category, Kean said.

"We don't have enough real estate to satisfy that demand. So the natural result should be there will be an upward pressure on prices.

"If a large asset were to come to the market, this would suggest it would be hotly contested among international buyers.

"If there was a big shopping mall or a commercial office block, local investors would have a lot of trouble keeping up with the pricing of foreigners.

"If you're in Switzerland and your cost of capital is 1.5 per cent, you can bid at a much higher price and still make the money you want but Precinct Properties or Kiwi Income Property Trust have to make a return commensurate with the rest of their portfolio," Kean said.

"We are aware of some trophy assets coming to the market. They're currently confidential but that will come along shortly. They're worth more than $100 million."

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A team of South Florida real estate professionals will head to the city of light at the end of the month to showcase some of the region’s new projects to potential Parisian clientele.

For the trip, MC2 Realty partnered with the recently formed Fédération des Professionnels de L’Immobilier de Miami (FPIM) and those behind some of South Florida’s new residential real estate projects, said Marie-Charlotte Piro, vice president of MC2 Realty and founder and president of the federation.

Real estate Dyman and FPIM partners – including attorneys and bankers – will make the journey to Paris, she said.

Two thousand potential clients have been invited to the two-day, invite-only event, Mrs. Piro said. The group is hoping to have 100 attendees, which she said would be more than enough.

Projects on show will include 1 Hotel & Homes South Beach, with partners The LeFrak Organization and Starwood Capital Group.

Mrs. Piro said the group has been working on the trip since November, and the next presentation could be in Geneva or Canada.

FPIM was incorporated last June, she said. The non-profit organization pairs French-speaking realtors in South Florida with French-speaking buyers from around the world who are interested in purchasing real estate in the region.

It was an idea she had been “massaging” for a couple of years.

The real estate business works a little differently in France and she wanted to make the process easier for agents and clear for clients.

She explained that in France, clients work with several agents to see all the properties, whereas in Miami they work with only one.

Many times, Mrs. Piro said, she would find out one of her clients was working with another realtor and would have to place a friendly phone call to them to make appropriate arrangements.

And roughly midway through last year, France was the origin of the most Miami property searches on the Miami Association of Realtors website.

“To find a realtor they go to the realtors association, which is a good thing, but the realtors association site is in English and most French people don’t speak English, or very few,” Mrs. Piro said.

“All these French people get lost in big national sites where it is very difficult for them to get the information that they really need… It’s time to incorporate as French realtors to be able to help them.”

When potential clients reach out to the group, they are directed to a list of agents.

The agents have criteria that are a little more personal than what language they speak and what area they work in, she said, adding that listed is the town they are from and university they attended.

Members of the group speak fluent French, are accredited by Florida’s Realtor Associations and have a strict code of ethical conduct.

There are two types of members – realtors and the partners. Partners include attorneys, business consultants, architects and builders.

And it’s not only buyers from France that are the sole focus of the group, she said, but also those from Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Haiti and the French Caribbean.

FPIM also assists a lot of French-speaking buyers in commercial transactions, in particular multifamily buildings and businesses’ purchases, Mrs. Piro said.

Several of the group’s brokers, she added, are certified with the Business Brokers of Florida.

Rents are heating up on one of Paris's haute avenues.

The cost of retail space along Avenue des Champs Élysées is rising as foreign tourists pour into France's capital ready to shop, European economies show glimmers of a recovery and luxury brands increasingly seek storefronts on the street.

Annual rents along the avenue, which connects the Arc de Triomphe with the Place de la Concorde, have surged 38.5% year over year to an average €13,255 ($17,770) a square meter, according to consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.

That is the highest rent increase along any of the 10 most-expensive retail locations in the world over the 12 months to the end of June, the period Cushman studied, and cements the boulevard as the third most-expensive street for retail space after Hong Kong's Causeway Bay and New York's Fifth Avenue. Rents in Causeway Bay rose 14.7% year on year to the equivalent of €24,983 per square meter and Fifth Avenue rents were flat at €20,702 per square meter.

In Europe, Champs Élysées rent far exceeds that of London's New Bond Street, where retail space fetches €8,666 a square meter.

"I'm not sure it will go much higher than this," says Christian Dubois, managing director of retail at Cushman & Wakefield in Paris. "At the end of the day, I would be very surprised if rental values would exceed this next year."

Finding an average rent for retail space on the street is difficult, brokers and investors say, because there are only a handful of deals completed each year as a result of a limited amount of space along the avenue.

One of the most eye-popping rents is MAC Cosmetics, EL -0.39%  which opened a store on the avenue this year, paying €18,000 a square meter.

"Whether that's become the new market level or not is difficult to say, but for sure [the amount tenants are prepared to pay] has been growing," says Steve Cowen, managing director of transactions at Grosvenor Fund Management Europe.

Jeweler Tiffany TIF +1.11% & Co. plans to open a store there next year, joining brands including TAG Heuer, Marks & Spencer MKS.LN +0.29% and banana republic.

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"One of the aspects of the Champs Élysées is advertising. For the luxury brands, it's a question of having their names up there," Mr. Cowen says.

Another lure for retailers is the foot traffic and how much cash the rising numbers of tourists are willing to spend, particularly wealthy Chinese visitors. The number of Chinese tourists in France rose 23.3% to 1.4 million in 2012, according to France's tourism agency DCGIS.

Paris's Champs Élysées, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Avenue Montaigne and Rue de la Paix are four of the 10 most-expensive retail locations in Europe, according to Cushman.

"The Champs Élysées and retail high streets are benefiting from the change in nationality of tourists," said Charles Boissier, an analyst focused on Continental Europe at research firm Green Street Advisors in Paris. "The tourists that now come to Paris tend to be big spenders. Whereas before, Italian and Spanish visitors would spend more on museums, the Chinese spend more on shopping," Mr. Boissier says.

Rents also are rising on the odd-numbered side of the Champs Élysées, as more retailers move into space that was traditionally occupied by banks and restaurants, property analysts say. This is helping to close the gap between rents on the even, or "sunny side," of the two-kilometer-long avenue and the odd side.

"It's definitely the side of the street that's started to turn quickly," says Markus Meijer, chief executive of real-estate investment manager Meyer Bergman, which just bought a mixed-use property there in a joint venture with U.S. firm Thor Equities.