Filtered by Subscriptions: Europe Commercial Property Use setting Europe Commercial Property
Although investment activity generally softened, the bigger picture was that the health of investment markets across non-euro-zone Europe continued to improve in Q1 2010. Indeed, yields fell in almost all markets, particularly in the office and retail …
20th May 2010
Recent falls in property yields have lifted capital values in most markets, particularly in Norway and France. But this trend is unlikely to last. Indeed, we think that the yield recovery is likely to slow, while further rental falls could well tip …
19th May 2010
While recent news on the Hungarian economy has been surprisingly positive, we are not yet convinced that a sustainable economic recovery is underway. Among other things, Hungary’s fragile banking sector and the need for further fiscal tightening are …
18th May 2010
Commercial property offers a seemingly attractive premium over bonds. However, once we factor in the weaker economic and occupier market outlook, to us most Western European markets look pricey. We therefore remain cautious over prospects for yields. … …
13th May 2010
Despite a fall in Q1, the underlying trend in European commercial property investment volumes continued to improve gradually. Although still patchy at the city level, falls in euro-zone office and retail yields were extended in Q1, while the biggest falls …
12th May 2010
In the short-term, March’s €535 million net inflow into German open-ended property funds is likely to boost European commercial property investment volumes and may add to the downwards pressure on yields. But it does nothing to change our view that the …
11th May 2010
Having fallen by 100bps since their high in mid-2009, industrial yields in Norway are beginning to look overvalued relative to bonds as well as both office and retail markets. Given that, Q1 2010’s disappointing fall in Norwegian industrial production …
7th May 2010
The rise in take-up in the Moscow office market in Q1 2010 may be less encouraging than it first seems. Indeed, given the large volume of completions, the improvement in demand was only enough to stabilise the vacancy rate. If occupier demand weakens …
5th May 2010
The upbeat message on Poland from yesterday’s Q1 2010 RICS global survey broadly fits with our view that Polish property will be among the best performers in Europe this year. But we are less convinced by the apparent resurgence of confidence in the …
30th April 2010
Today’s Q1 2010 RICS global commercial property survey broadly supports our view that the weak occupier market outlook will drive capital values at least a little lower this year in most Western European property markets. Admittedly, in a few markets, the …
29th April 2010
This morning’s ECB bank lending survey suggests that credit conditions for business and household lending in the euro-zone remained tight in Q1 2010. With expectations for Q2 much the same, this will continue to act as a drag on both occupier and …
28th April 2010
Over the next few years we think that the Polish retail market will outperform most retail markets in both Emerging Europe and the euro-zone. Indeed, the sanguine outlook for retail occupier demand and limited risk of oversupply point to a relatively …
23rd April 2010
Q1’s easing of credit conditions for commercial real estate in Norway will continue to support the nascent property investment market recovery. The recovery in yields is well underway, but we think that interest rate rises this year could limit the extent …
22nd April 2010
The fading recovery in consumer confidence highlights the fact that retail occupier demand in the Netherlands is likely to remain pretty fragile. And with property-specific supports to headline rental values set to become less important, we suspect that …
21st April 2010
Although the risk from new supply is less than in previous cycles, completions in all the major Western European office markets are likely to push vacancy rates up this year. This will keep rental values under downward pressure. The risk from increased …
14th April 2010
With Irish investors having been such big players during the most recent commercial property boom across Europe, there are now concerns (highlighted, for example, in a recent Property Week) that the new Irish National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) may …
13th April 2010
February’s 0.6% monthly fall in euro-zone retail sales volumes suggests that occupier demand for retail space is still weak in the single currency region. And given that the occupier market outlook has not yet improved, we think that the correction in …
8th April 2010
The fact that Turkish household consumption growth turned positive in Q4 is encouraging news for retailer occupier demand. But it needs to be set against the substantial increase in supply expected over the next couple of years. On balance, we think that …
7th April 2010
Over the next two years, we think that the three European countries with the strongest outlook for industrial rental value growth are Poland, France and Switzerland. By contrast, taking into account the prospects for economic recovery, supply …
6th April 2010
We have cut our forecasts for rental value growth in Greece and Portugal over the next two years by around 6% and 4% respectively. The cuts reflect downgrades to our GDP growth forecasts. Our rental forecasts for Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy remain …
1st April 2010
While March’s fall in German unemployment was welcome news, we suspect that renewed rises lie ahead this year as ‘kurzarbeit’ subsidies begin to expire for many workers. However, given that most of these workers are from the hardest hit sectors such as …
31st March 2010
March’s fall in service sector sentiment in France suggests that 2009Q4’s sharp rise in take-up is unlikely to be repeated in 2010Q1. Moreover, with underlying demand also still relatively weak, even if sentiment improves markedly in the near-term, office …
26th March 2010
Along with GDP growth turning negative again in Q4, yesterday’s downgrade of Portugal’s credit rating can be nothing but bad news for commercial property. Even before the downgrade, our analysis suggested that Portuguese property was a little expensive. …
25th March 2010
The recovery in real estate equity prices suggests that capital values in the largest European commercial property markets will rise this year. Indeed, if anything, the risks to our forecasts seem to lie on the upside. However, with much of the recent …
24th March 2010
Although Dutch office rental values have held up well to date, with low occupier confidence and a high volume of completions expected this year, we think the rental value correction has a little further to go. Even so, the overall peak-to-trough fall is …
18th March 2010
At the margin, last week’s upward revision to our forecasts for Russian GDP growth will boost occupier demand for commercial property. However, we still expect the pace of recovery to fade next year, and the GDP forecast revisions are too small to …
17th March 2010
Their recent stabilisation suggests that the correction in Turkish property yields may now be over. With a relatively healthy outlook for the economy, and signs already emerging that rental values are beginning to recover, we are inclined to support this …
11th March 2010
German office rental value growth lagged behind other major markets between 2004 and 2008, but we do not expect a repeat performance over the next few years. We think that the fundamental supports for the German office market are substantially better this …
8th March 2010
A closer look at the movement in French commercial property yields supports the idea that liquidity remains a key consideration for investors as office yields have fallen more sharply than retail or industrial. With the outlook so uncertain, we think that …
4th March 2010
Q4’s dreadful GDP data for Sweden may have pushed back any recovery in commercial property occupier demand and rental values. Together with the prospect of a rising level of distressed sales, we also think that the outlook for Swedish property yields may …
2nd March 2010
The surge in Danish commercial property investment volumes in 2009Q4 is not as encouraging as it first seems. Although the economy is now expanding again, the 7% peak-to-trough fall in GDP will mean that income security remains an issue. Although …
1st March 2010
Retail rental values in Helsinki and Lisbon have fallen by more than the euro-zone average. Helsinki has been hit by a steep drop in Finnish consumer spending, while increased supply has added to downward pressure on rental values in Lisbon. In our view, …
25th February 2010
The spectacular rebound in office take-up in Brussels at the end of 2009 does not appear to be a total one-off. Indeed, relatively strong underlying demand and service sector sentiment suggests that takeup levels could remain pretty high in 2010. However, …
23rd February 2010
Rental values in most sectors and locations either fell or were unchanged in Q4. The sharpest declines occurred in the industrial sector. Scandinavia led a recovery in the investment market and increased investor interest resulted in all-property initial …
22nd February 2010
Although office rental values in Italy have held up reasonably well over the past eighteen months, a slow recovery in the economy and a rise in development completions suggest that this will not last. With both demand and supply weighing down on rental …
18th February 2010
There are tentative signs that credit conditions are easing in some Emerging European economies. This may raise hopes that commercial property investment markets in the region could rebound this year from 2009’s low. But given the dominance of foreign …
16th February 2010
The euro-zone investment market recovery gained traction in the final quarter of 2009, as investor appetite for commercial property strengthened. However, there is still no evidence that a sustainable recovery in occupier demand is underway. And given …
15th February 2010
Although German bund yields, our preferred measure of risk-free rates, have held fairly steady, commercial property investors cannot afford to ignore the sharp rise in Greek, Portuguese, and to a lesser extent, Spanish bond yields since the turn of the …
12th February 2010
Although some euro-zone office markets saw a rise in take-up at the end of 2009, we do not think that this spells the end of the occupier market downturn. The fragile state of the economic recovery and weak outlook for labour markets in the euro-zone …
8th February 2010
Spanish retail rents have held up surprisingly well given the severe downturn in the consumer sector. However, with unemployment at nearly 20%, household debt levels high and taxes set to rise this year, the outlook for consumers is bleak. This will hit …
4th February 2010
Last week’s RICS Global Commercial Property Survey painted a mixed picture of commercial property investment market activity in Emerging Europe. The recovery seemed to be strongest in the Czech Republic, where surveyors were comparatively upbeat over …
2nd February 2010
The latest European Commission survey revealed an encouraging, widespread further improvement in industrial confidence in Emerging Europe in January. But data revealed a far more mixed picture for consumer confidence. Although the comparatively upbeat …
28th January 2010
The RICS Global Commercial Property Survey released today confirmed that investment market activity in Western Europe rose in 2009Q4. It also indicated that the investment market recovery will be sustained in the near term. However, while we share that …
27th January 2010
The rise in industrial orders and production in the euro-zone in November is encouraging news for industrial property. However, with ample spare capacity in the sector, and the outlook for consumer spending and thus demand for distribution space still …
25th January 2010
We think that commercial property returns in Norway will be higher over the next few years than anywhere else in Western Europe. This Update elaborates on our thinking and also highlights some of the risks around our view. … Norway: property outlook …
19th January 2010
We expect the divergence between the investor market and the occupier market, which started to appear in 2009, to continue in 2010. Initial data suggest that, although still low by historical standards, European investment volumes rose again in 2009Q4. By …
18th January 2010
We think that the UK, French and Polish markets seem undervalued by about 10% to 20%, while the Belgian and German markets look to be around fair value. The Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish and Swedish markets all still appear overvalued, by about 5% …
13th January 2010
The latest fall in euro-zone retail sales confirmed that the wider economic recovery has not yet spread to the consumer sector, despite nine consecutive monthly rises in consumer confidence. And, as the full effect of the weakened retail environment of …
7th January 2010
We expect commercial property rental values in Germany to fall across all sectors in 2010 and stabilise in 2011. In particular, we doubt that recent signs of an improvement in the German labour market will be sustained. Indeed, as government wage …
5th January 2010
We are more optimistic about the outlook for property returns in non-euro-zone European markets than in our previous forecasts. … Improving investor sentiment may be slow to spread to Emerging Europe (Vol.1 …
4th January 2010
