Filtered by Subscriptions: Europe Commercial Property Use setting Europe Commercial Property
Physical retail demand has not only been shaped by online shopping, but also by shifting working patterns which have redistributed where we spend our money since COVID-19. Nevertheless, we expect a more even retail performance with the worst-hit …
26th March 2025
Despite numerous reports of firms rowing back on remote work, the evidence in the UK, US and the EU suggests that the share of jobs being done remotely has remained constant over the past couple of years. Admittedly, that may reflect relatively tight …
20th March 2025
Events of the past week or so have worsened the outlook for German commercial property. While more government spending could marginally boost rents, the higher outlook for interest rates will outweigh this positive, and will likely put upward pressure on …
12th March 2025
Five years ago, we were downbeat about the immediate prospects for the largest city real estate markets, the so-called gateways, and that view has proved correct. But we also argued that this malaise would be short lived and strong fundamentals would be …
5th March 2025
The events of the past two weeks have called into question whether the US is severing ties not just with adversaries such as China but also allies, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. This would radically alter the shape of the fractured …
4th March 2025
Industrial property has been a clear winner over the past five years, with double-digit annual rental growth far outpacing expectations. However, as we predicted early on, supply has been responsive and, combined with a normalisation in demand, those …
25th February 2025
Hotels have seen a considerable turnaround in the past five years given the near-existential threat that the pandemic posed to the sector. Having bottomed last year, we expect values will grow in the coming years, with a pick-up in consumer spending …
20th February 2025
Five years ago, the retail sector was staring at the abyss, as lockdowns and virus-related restrictions worsened what was already a crisis in demand. The turnaround since has been dramatic. But while the sector has now re-priced and is set to perform …
12th February 2025
After a strong Q4, a shaky start to 2025 has highlighted the fragility of the recovery in euro-zone commercial real estate investment. We still expect transaction volumes to rise over the remainder of the year, but tight lending conditions, refinancing …
11th February 2025
A stabilisation in capital values and decline in interest rates have sparked optimism that we may be past the worst of the real estate debt refinancing challenge. That indeed looks to be the case in the UK. However, euro-zone banks are still pulling back …
6th February 2025
This is the first in a series of pieces that revisit our pandemic-era forecasts about the future of global real estate markets and cities and explore how they will evolve in the coming years. This dedicated page highlights key analysis from our earlier …
5th February 2025
The latest RICS survey showed further improvement in occupier and investor demand in Europe. However, with the uptick in sentiment only small, the market looks to be struggling to gain momentum, supporting our view that the recovery in capital values this …
30th January 2025
Renewed rises in market interest rates across the UK, US and euro-zone have prompted questions about the implications for real estate. For now, we think the upside risk to property yields is small. We still anticipate government bond yields to fall back …
23rd January 2025
The underperformance of the German office-based jobs sector since 2019 has been stark and the weak outlook for the economy suggests a material reversal is unlikely in the next five years. This will hold back office demand compared to the other main …
22nd January 2025
Slowing economic growth and rising availability will hold back French industrial rental growth this year, with affordability concerns likely to be an additional drag in Paris. This will leave the region underperforming other euro-zone markets, with …
15th January 2025
Madrid has seen some of the region’s strongest prime office rental growth in the recent past. While the factors supporting this surge may weaken slightly over time, we think that rent and returns performance will remain close to the top of the euro-zone …
14th January 2025
Against a backdrop of lower interest rates and weak economic growth in much of Europe, we think the recovery in property values will continue at a gradual pace in 2025. Our forecast for euro-zone total returns of almost 9% is a notable improvement on the …
8th January 2025
The end of the downturn in the European property market came in 2024 as forecast, though the euro-zone performed better than we had expected. That primarily reflected the strength of the prime office market, where rents grew faster than both we and the …
7th January 2025
The non-euro-zone central European logistics markets have been Europe’s worst performing in 2024 as prime rents have fallen across the region. 2025 will herald more of the same, as oversupply keeps prime rent performance lagging the rest of Europe, with …
19th December 2024
The incoming Trump administration is threatening to put new tariffs on European exports. In our view, given their limited macroeconomic impact, they will not be a game-changer for commercial property. But in some sectors, notably industrial and, within …
18th December 2024
A vast share of our clients highlighted geopolitics and/or Trump as their biggest blind spots going into 2025 when polled at our recent London roundtables. Meanwhile, a large majority thought that interest rates will be the key driver of returns next …
9th December 2024
Paris retail rents surged in Q3 raising hopes for a sustained revival. But this jump probably reflects a temporary boost from the Olympics and momentum is expected to fade next year. Despite this, we think the French capital will slightly exceed euro-zone …
4th December 2024
We held an online session on US import tariffs on 26th November. (See a recording here ). In this Update we answer the questions we were most asked. What are Trump’s motives for threatening tariffs and will he follow through? Trump has spoken about using …
29th November 2024
This week we held a series of roundtable discussions with clients in our London office about the outlook for European commercial property. This Update outlines our thoughts on some of the most interesting questions raised, covering the likely winners in …
28th November 2024
President-elect Donald Trump’s first threatened tariffs since the election are designed to extract concessions on drug trafficking and illegal border crossings, which means it may be possible for the countries targeted – Canada, Mexico and China – to head …
26th November 2024
The recovery in euro-zone real estate investment has been weak in 2024, with total activity in the first three quarters little changed on 2023’s near-record-lows. However, prospects for 2025 are brighter. We think investment will rise 25% y/y as interest …
20th November 2024
The larger and faster pace of ECB rate cuts we now expect means euro-zone government bond yields are likely to be lower in the coming years than previously forecast. This is positive for property valuations and means property yields could fall by more in …
19th November 2024
It is increasingly clear to us that pricing in all three regions we forecast has bottomed, even if appraisals are yet to reflect that in mainland Europe and the US. And although we expect recent events – the election of Donald Trump and the recent UK …
14th November 2024
The strength of prime office rent growth in Europe in recent years has surprised forecasters, however there is broad agreement that rental growth will slow next year. We share that view, but are less pessimistic than most about the extent of the slowdown. …
Residential’s growing share of investor portfolios speaks to the buzz around its potential to keep providing outsized returns. But will the sector continue to deliver? Join our Commercial Real Estate team for a special online briefing all about the …
8th November 2024
31st October 2024
Softer rental prospects, less scope for yields to fall and lower income returns look set to weigh on French residential property returns compared to Germany, the UK and the US in the coming years. This Update uses a similar methodology to our recent Focus …
29th October 2024
There is growing concern about how the green transition may create stranded real estate assets, impacting negatively on both lenders and investors. We can get some idea of the scale of the problem in Dutch markets where EPC targets have been more …
23rd October 2024
The strong recovery in property equities prices across the UK, euro-zone and US implies larger rises in commercial property capital values by the end of the year than we are currently forecasting. However, property equities have been boosted by the …
22nd October 2024
Dutch prime logistics rent growth is set to be among the highest in the region over the next few years. That reflects both strong prospects for leasing, thanks to a bright economic outlook and greater e-commerce penetration, and relatively tight supply. …
17th October 2024
Prime high street rental growth in Barcelona has outpaced Madrid since late 2022. However, we think rental growth will converge in the coming years as tourism numbers fall back to pre-pandemic levels in Barcelona and stronger domestic spending prospects …
10th October 2024
On the back of client questions, we have put together this short primer on the potential impact of a second Trump term on commercial real estate markets, both in the US and elsewhere. The key takeaway is that if Trump were to follow through on his mooted …
7th October 2024
Non-high street retail subsectors have seen a stronger rental recovery from post-pandemic lows than high street shops. And we think this outperformance will continue given tighter availability and slightly more favourable demand drivers. That said, there …
3rd October 2024
Tight supply conditions have boosted German prime logistics rents despite weak occupier demand. This looks set to continue over the next year or two given completions pipelines for the German markets are among the tightest in Europe. However, weak …
26th September 2024
We doubt the announcement by Amazon that it is requiring office-based workers to return full-time marks the start of a reversal in the remote work share. It is far from clear that requiring five days a week in the office raises worker productivity and it …
18th September 2024
Milan office take-up has held up well in recent quarters, but this has not translated into stronger prime rental growth. With the outlook for jobs growth pointing to a slowdown in take-up while downsizing and affordability concerns are rising, we think …
11th September 2024
The most recent European industrial take-up figures were slightly more encouraging. We expect activity will continue to slowly improve over the next couple of years, supported by the consumer recovery and increasing online penetration, though no return to …
5th September 2024
Recent estimates add to the evidence that online retail shares are growing more slowly across Europe. There has also been little sign of convergence in online shares, supporting our long-held view that online competition will be less of a drag on southern …
3rd September 2024
Prime office rents look set to rise by more than we had previously expected over the next few years given still low CBD vacancy, preferences for prime space and cuts to the supply pipeline in 2025-26. While we still expect rental growth to slow, our …
29th August 2024
Despite better occupier data in H1, the weak consumer backdrop and still elevated vacancy mean we expect German retail rents to only hold steady this year. Thereafter, we expect rental gains to lag the euro-zone average, especially in Frankfurt given the …
15th August 2024
European office occupier surveys reveal that office attendance and utilisation has continued to rise over the past year and that it could still improve a bit further. However, despite the rise in attendance, office vacancy has continued to climb and is …
12th August 2024
The Q2 rise in euro-zone investment marks the start of the recovery, but one that will be weak and uneven across markets. Economic and political concerns means investment in Germany and France is likely to lag, while the faster pick-up to date in Italy …
7th August 2024
While the UK led the recovery in investment activity in Q4 last year, the latest data suggest the US and euro-zone are now also turning a corner. But given concerns over economic growth in all three markets alongside structurally higher long-term rates, …
6th August 2024
We have been sceptical of the viability of conversion of excess office space into residential units. But the latest figures indicate that, despite marginal financials, there may have been more activity than expected since the pandemic. And with office …
1st August 2024
At the end of the pandemic, there was a view that remote working would drive a wedge between CBD and other submarket rents. The evidence of this remains uneven. But in some cities, notably Paris and London, a shift to central locations may have helped …
31st July 2024
