Anglo Irish Bank and Crosspoint Assoc. recently outbid domestic investors to acquire the 10-building Thomson Financial portfolio in Boston’s Fort Point Channel area. Foreign investors have been purchasing high-quality properties in major American cities, including Boston, partly due to favorable exchange rates.

When Anglo Irish Bank partnered with Crosspoint Assoc. to outbid other qualified bidders last summer on the 10-building Thomson Financial portfolio in the emergent Fort Point Channel area, the $120.5 million transaction served as another reminder of how attractive the American real estate market is to foreign investors.

The transaction is just one of many examples of buyers from abroad, spurred by the favorable exchange rates, purchasing high-quality properties in major American markets, including Boston, New York, Washington, D.C, Chicago and Los Angeles, either with or without a U.S. partner.

Anyone who has been to London or Paris lately and nearly choked on the price tag of a $4 bottle of Coke can understand the economic dynamic. At the time of this writing, one U.S. dollar equals 2.11 British pounds sterling, or 1.46 Euro.

That exchange rate, combined with the solid economic fundamentals in key American cities, has made British, Europeans and Middle Easterners focused on buying here. All across Boston, foreign investors flush with cash are trawling for buildings to buy, competing head to head with American competitors and winning. According to research by CB Richard Ellis, a real estate services company, in 2006 nearly $1.35 billion in foreign capital poured into the Boston market, an increase of nearly $1 billion from 2005. Such investments have continued in Boston throughout 2007. Consider:

• So far this year, nearly a dozen buildings on Newbury Street have been acquired on behalf of high-net worth Irish investors. For example, in January, the Anglo Irish Bank acquired and financed the purchase of the retail portion of 201 Newbury St. for $42.62 million, on behalf of an international private client.

• In July, Ponte Gadea, a Spanish investment company owned by billionaire Amancio Ortega, bought 46,000 square feet of retail space now leased to Best Buy at 360 Newbury St., formerly known as the Tower Records building, for a reported $50 million.

• In August, CBRE sold the Thomson portfolio in the up-and-coming Fort Point Channel district.

• In November, a subsidiary of the Dubai Investment Group acquired a majority stake in the 10-building former Flatley portfolio in Braintree through a joint venture agreement with KS Partners.

During the last wave of foreign investment in the American real estate market, in the 1980s, the Japanese acquired trophy properties such as Rockefeller Center in New York and the Pebble Beach Golf Club in California. Those sales were driven by the rapid appreciation of the yen against the dollar and the desire to own “iconic” real estate in the United States.

Today, with surplus capital earned in the high-tech, diamond and oil sectors, there is increased competition from investors from the U.K., Spain, Australia and the United Arab Emirates not just for “trophy” properties, but also for high-quality real estate that is fundamentally strong but may not show up on the cover of an annual report.

Across the Pond

In Boston, most foreign investment has been taking place in the Back Bay and the Financial District. However, many foreign investors have expressed an interest in acquiring high-quality property in Cambridge and the inner suburbs, in areas such as Waltham.

Foreign investors are looking at Class A and Class B office buildings, shopping centers, major industrial properties and urban retail, with a bias towards luxury retailers, which is why Newbury Street has remained so popular with foreign capital.

The Irish are not the only ones interested in retail. Australia’s Centro Property Group, with more than $25 billion in property under management, has become one of the top shopping center owners in the country; the firm owns about a dozen plazas and retail centers across Massachusetts.

Of course, shopping from abroad is never easy. It’s a little like trying to buy shoes online. The process is even more difficult for those who are used to a different system. In Europe, 80 percent of all building sales have independent seller and buyer representation – a setup that is deeply embedded in the real estate culture overseas. In the United States, the system is geared toward having just a seller’s representative broker the deal, leaving foreign investors scrambling to find a partner, consultant or advisory firm to help them navigate the process of acquiring real estate, from offer through closing, and, if successful, in the ongoing responsibilities of owning and operating.

Assuming that foreign investor demand continues to increase, buyer-side representation will become more prevalent in the U.S. CBRE is already moving to embrace this concept. The firm’s Boston office has weekly communication with its associates responsible for sourcing capital in Dublin, London, Western Europe and the Middle East. As little as two years ago this global strategy of sourcing buyers overseas was more concept than reality. Today, if you are not exposing real estate opportunities to overseas investors on behalf of your clients, you are excluding an entire segment of the market from your marketing process. It would be akin to saying that you are excluding real estate investment trusts, which, of course, would be ridiculous.