Knight Frank attributes much of the rise in cross-border investment to the increased popularity of buying properties in foreign countries.
Their data backs up this claim, as it points out that there has been a 49 percent increase in the number of survey respondents that said their clients' allocation to property had increased over the past 10 years. Only allocations to things like stocks, bonds, and homes that were not bought purely for investment purposes, saw larger gains in popularity over the same time frame.