Walton Global Courts Investors For U.S. Fund As Money Starts Shifting Away From Gulf

The Middle East has been a growing destination for foreign capital in recent years, but the conflict in Iran has some investors thinking twice about the region. That might be a boon for U.S. commercial real estate.

Foreign investors were sending money into the Gulf Cooperation Council states at a growing rate before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, according to a January report from BNP Paribas.

Inward capital flows totaled 9.6% of the collective GDP in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year — up from 5.7% in 2023.

“A lot of money has been going into the real estate sector [in the Middle East] because it was very exciting,” said Katie Doherty, chief operating officer of Asia for Walton Global.

Now, she said she is seeing some global capital shifting away from the Persian Gulf region.

“People are going, ‘Oh, I should move my money outside of that potential conflict zone,’” she said.

Amid these global capital shifts, Walton Global last month launched a new fund targeting offshore investors, the U.S. Land Income & Growth Fund, which Doherty said will provide a stable destination for their money. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based firm, founded in 1979, focuses on land acquisitions and has $4.4B under management.

Its newest fund is targeting Asian investors, with a focus on Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, where Doherty is based.  

It also positioned the fund to attract money from Middle Eastern investors. 

The fund was certified as Shariah-compliant by the Malaysian firm Masryef Advisory, which means that it is aligned with the ethical guidelines espoused by Islamic law.

Not all of Walton’s funds get this certification — another Hong Kong-based vehicle it manages isn't Shariah-compliant.

Many investment vehicles in Islamic Gulf states are looking to increase their investments in Shariah-compliant funds to give Muslim clients more options for their money, Property Week reported last year.

“Once you make it Shariah-compliant, you can just access that much more capital,” Doherty said.

The firm plans to acquire undeveloped land in high-demand submarkets. She said she sees this as the best way for foreign investors to profit off the U.S. housing sector, since it avoids risk tied to construction costs and consumer demand.

“There’s a major home deficit in the United States right now,” she said. “We believe that bottleneck really is land.”

The vehicle is also providing short-to-mid-term financing for domestic homebuilders. Walton is acquiring land on their behalf, and the builders will purchase it at a premium down the line. The firm is still compiling parcels in high-growth markets like Georgia, the Carolinas and Texas, with a focus on the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Doherty said Walton is aiming for 65% of the land to be pre-entitled for development. But she said she is confident Walton will be able to get the unentitled land through the approval process.

“With NIMBYism kind of rampant across the U.S., we have the expertise that we can do the entitlement ourselves,” she said. “We are very experienced in that regard.”

This type of investment is particularly appealing to investors seeking safety as they shift away from more volatile parts of the world, Doherty said. 

“In any market situation, investors are seeking stability — however, now more than ever,” she added.

The Gulf region has been a relatively small target for global investors acquiring commercial property, MSCI Executive Director Jim Costello said. 

Cross-border investors have bought $2.4B in commercial property across all of Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Kuwait over the last 10 years, according to MSCI.

But capital flows have risen in recent years, with $1.6B of that investment occurring since mid-2023. And Costello said more money has been flowing into construction projects in the region, which MSCI's data doesn't include. 

While the war has added a new layer of uncertainty, investor concerns about the region’s geopolitical issues aren't new.

An April 2025 EY survey of 300 senior corporate executives who were already investing or considering investing in the Gulf region found that 39% listed geopolitical tensions as a top-three concern, up from 31% in 2024.

With flight cancellations and delays racking up at airports in Dubai and Doha, Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate CEO Gunnar Branson said people aren't traveling to the Gulf. He said the region is “the very definition right now of uncertainty.”

“The crystal balls are dark,” Branson said. “You just can’t see through them.”