Last March 1 might well be remembered as a watershed moment for Canadian identity. Toronto-born comic Mike Myers closed off an episode of Saturday Night Live by mouthing hockey great Gordie Howe’s injunction “Elbows up!” while wearing a “Canada is not for sale” T-shirt.

For viewers north of the 49th parallel, it was an unmistakable call to push back against trade tariffs and the “51st state” rhetoric coming from President Donald Trump. And it inspired for many not only a feeling that our long-standing buddy relationship with the U.S. had hit a rough patch, but also that the U.S. itself was headed in a new direction.

Today, similar sentiments may be informing family offices’ decisions about where to invest.

The Canadian Family Offices report “The Multi-Family Office Landscape in Canada 2025,” based on a survey of about 80 multi-family offices and published late last year, found that 44 per cent of respondents expected to decrease allocations to U.S. assets over the following 12 months.

That means looking further afield for opportunities. More than 40 per cent of respondents said they expect clients’ exposure to non-U.S. developed markets to increase over the next 12 months.

By now, the so-called Sell America trade has shown up in global capital flows out of U.S. stocks, bonds and currency. But it may also be taking root in real estate—a core asset for many family offices—as they look beyond the familiar U.S. market for global allocations.

As with equities, one of the key areas of focus is Europe.

A report from the non-profit Urban Land Institute notes that enthusiasm for European real estate investment has been “tempered by economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions – from Ukraine and the Middle East to shifting US trade policy.” But it also highlights areas with particularly strong fundamentals and long-term potential, such as the cities of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona, as well as major cities in Germany.

The sectors worthy of attention reflect technological and manufacturing developments—data centres, storage facilities and new energy infrastructure in particular.

Demographic trends are also affecting the market. Europe’s aging population makes healthcare, retirement, assisted living and co-living facilities increasingly attractive, while the growth of the digital nomad lifestyle and, for many young people, a delayed entry into the workplace are creating more demand for student housing, serviced apartments, education-related real estate and affordable housing.

Arthur Salzer is the founder and CEO of Northland Wealth, which operates from Oakville, Ont., and Calgary. Northland serves about 50 families across Canada with ties to Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the U.S.

Salzer says that while institutional investors continue to emphasize the U.S. public markets (“despite the headline politics”), European secondary private equity and real estate present big opportunities, especially in the areas of data centres and logistics.

Since European workers generally returned to offices sooner than North Americans, office real estate is doing much better there, he says. Northland is also investing in logistics in northern Italy and in some European data-centre construction, which has been yielding threefold returns in recent years.

With the surge in artificial intelligence (AI), Salzer predicts a building boom in data centres. “There’s a race to get those built, but the challenge is you need power,” he says. “We see wise governments approving nuclear reactors to power these data centres.”

Energy transition and data

Fred Cassano, a partner and national leader of the real estate team at PwC in Toronto, says data is the “No. 1 sector to watch.”

“There are increased allocations to developed countries in Europe and Japan. I’ve also seen exposure to India and other developing countries,” he says, adding that Poland and Romania are desirable locations, too.

Manufacturing demand and energy transition are driving investment, says Cassano, “helping build AI and cryptocurrencies, the decarbonization of electrification and logistics-oriented real estate—supply-chain warehouses, data centres.”

Other sectors of note include defence spending, healthcare, consumer staples and semiconductors, he says.

Furthermore, investors are moving from low-risk, higher-yield investments to income-producing assets, such as hotels. With mandatory return-to-work programs, office space is in demand, along with undersupplied residential classes “such as students and seniors housing.” For example, Cassano notes, the exodus from war-torn Ukraine has caused a housing boom in Poland.

“In Europe, sustainability is still a big item for investors, and the focus has moved away from reporting to ROI and value creation,” he notes. Investors in Europe are now asking how investing in energy conservation may extend the useful life of their assets. And climate resilience has more importance in Europe than in North America because of due diligence and insurance cost calculations.

Diversifying and hedging bets 

“Canadians have always been investing abroad,” says Daniel Shindleman, an expat Canadian now serving as managing director of Bridgemer in Switzerland, which advises on and brokers real estate transactions. He often acts as a conduit for Canadian families, finding real estate and sustainable real assets such as infrastructure and agriculture.

Whereas a vacation home in the U.S. has been a common asset for decades, these days, “this process has accelerated and moved in some new directions,” Shindleman says, “first because of the realization that dependence on the U.S. creates some vulnerabilities.”

And with a low Canadian dollar, diversification has become desirable— “not only asset diversification, but political risk and currency diversification.”

The second realization, says Shindleman, is that “the welcome mat that used to be there just isn’t there anymore.” Canadians with a family connection to some other country than the U.S. have begun to hedge their bets by establishing a presence abroad to offer the family options in future.

Besides a second home, this may include second passports or educational opportunities for family members.

“It doesn’t only mean that you own property,” he explains. “It means you have relationships with property managers, lawyers and other locals you can work with.”

Apart from real estate for family use, Canadians are investing in other property, agriculture and infrastructure projects. “Because you can touch it, there’s certainty of ownership,” Shindleman says. Lacking existing connections to another country, Canadians are looking to places, like Switzerland, with strong currencies and stable societies.

“Those are the trends that we see,” says Shindleman. “In a way, they’re long-term trends, but they’ve clearly been accelerated in recent years.”