European Commercial Property Investment Finding Its Legs

By +Liam Bailey Wednesday 24 July 2013 According to new data from CB Richard Ellis investors ploughed 31.1 billion Euros into European commercial property in the second quarter of this year. This is a 13 percent increase on the figure recorded in Q2 2012 and the third consecutive quarter of strengthening activity in the European commercial sector. “This growth in commercial property investment activity comes at a time when other asset classes have been experiencing increased volatility due to concerns over the future of quantitative easing (QE) and further issues surrounding the euro,” Jonathan Hull, head of EMEA capital markets, CBRE said in the release. According to the report some 28.4 billion Euros has been invested in commercial property in still-dominant Germany over the last 12 months, which is up 36 percent compared to the previous 4 quarters. Sweden and Norway remained strong, as they have for several quarters. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the UK where investment activity decreased 6.5 percent in an annual comparison. Meanwhile Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, which were worst affected by the credit crunch and subsequent Euro crisis continued to show recovery with a combined total of 2.5 billion Euros invested in commercial property during the second quarter. This is an increase from less than 1 billion Euros last year.   The CBRE data tallies with that recently released by Cushman and Wakefield which said that European commercial investment has hit a 5 year high . Taylor Scott International