Japanese investors are spending the most in more than two decades to buy up properties overseas, undeterred by the global real estate slump and the yen’s decline to a 50-year low.

A Manhattan skyscraper, data centers in Toronto and office buildings in London are among the assets that Japanese companies and pension funds have scooped up this year. Flush with cash and in the only developed economy with access to rock-bottom financing rates, their purchases are giving some relief to the market as rising office vacancies and interest rates keep other buyers away.

“They see a window of opportunity at the moment in which they can be more competitive,” said Alex Foshay, head of real estate firm Newmark’s International Capital Markets Group.

Japan-sourced capital has accounted for $7.4bn of global commercial real estate transactions so far in 2023, more than three times the annual average in the past 15 years, according to MSCI Real Assets.

Spending on that scale from Japan has rarely been seen since the late 1980s, when the nation’s asset bubble fuelled purchases of iconic places such as Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach Golf Links.