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Our forecast is for a cumulative fall in Spanish prime office rents over the next two years. But we think this view is justified as occupier demand is likely to improve only gradually, meaning space released to the market won’t be fully absorbed. In fact, …
11th January 2021
Despite a brighter economic outlook later in 2021, many of the factors that weighed on investment activity last year are set to persist. In turn, following a likely 20% fall in European (excluding UK) investment in 2020, we think the recovery this year is …
7th January 2021
Although the rollout of effective vaccines should allow economic activity to rebound in the second half of the year, we do not think that European property markets will bounce back quickly. This Update outlines four key developments to watch out for in …
6th January 2021
The pandemic – and the associated increase in working from home – may cause a fundamental shift in the way that cities function in future. But this shift will not necessarily trigger a more fundamental economic decline in the world’s largest urban …
5th January 2021
The recent re-introduction of weekend curfews and the announced four-day new year lockdown suggest that the struggles of the retail sector will continue into 2021. And despite the improving outlook for consumer spending and tourism, we think that weakness …
22nd December 2020
Overview – While vaccine developments have improved the economic outlook for the latter half of next year, the near-term weakness in economic activity means that property values will remain under pressure over the coming quarters. But even once occupier …
18th December 2020
Overview – The positive news on the vaccine has improved the economic outlook and should allow output in the Swiss and Scandinavian economies to recover to their pre-virus levels in late 2021. This will support the rental recovery. However, structural …
17th December 2020
Overview – Although the near-term economic outlook remains weak, vaccine developments pave the way for a rebound in mid-2021. However, we think that the rental recovery in property markets will be more gradual. This reflects that structural headwinds …
10th December 2020
A weaker CEE rental outlook, coupled with tighter policy and investors’ reassessment of the sector, suggest that the recent widening between CEE and euro-zone office yields has further to go. As the severity of the pandemic became clear, we argued that …
3rd December 2020
News about a vaccine has boosted financial markets and we have revised up our global economic expectations for the next two years or so. But while we think that this bodes well for the medium term, next year is still likely to be tough for most property …
2nd December 2020
Falls in alternative asset yields in Q3 meant valuations continued to improve for offices and retail, while they held steady for industrial. (See Chart 1.) And the backdrop is supportive of property valuations in the coming quarters. Indeed, government …
30th November 2020
Economic and property data for Q3 confirmed Switzerland and Scandinavia’s relative resilience in this pandemic. In fact, Scandinavian capital value growth improved across all sectors on an annual basis, albeit values continued to fall for retail. (See …
24th November 2020
Data for Q3 confirmed that while some office and industrial markets in the region recorded quarterly rental falls, weakness was still unsurprisingly concentrated in the retail sector. Core-CEE retail rents have now fallen by 15% so far this year, far …
23rd November 2020
Virus-driven behaviour changes that support a faster online transition will boost industrial demand over the coming years. But we don’t believe the view that higher online spending will cause rents to detach permanently from the underlying strength of the …
19th November 2020
Moscow offices rents were under pressure even before the onset of COVID-19 and a further steep decline is expected this year. Domestic economic factors will be more supportive in 2021, but this is unlikely to deliver much more than marginal growth over …
17th November 2020
Third quarter data make it look increasingly likely that our year-end price forecasts will prove to be too negative. However, with the UK still on course for a capital value fall of close to 10% this year, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the US or …
12th November 2020
The industrial sector aside, investment activity and occupier demand failed to recover from sharp Q2 falls in Q3, even as lockdown measures were eased. Indeed, in the retail sector, the fall in prime rents gathered pace and yields edged up. In sharp …
German occupier demand has slumped in the pandemic, though rents have generally held steady so far this year. But with demand likely to remain weak and an overhang of supply in some markets, declines are still likely over the next 12 months or so. Our …
6th November 2020
T he second virus wave in CEE came at a time when the region’s retail sector was already on its knees. We now expect the fall in rents to continue in Q4, albeit at a slower pace than in Q2. After successfully controlling the virus outbreak in the spring, …
5th November 2020
Greater remote working looks set to be a legacy of the pandemic. However, given that working from home was already relatively prevalent in Sweden and Denmark, the scope for significant further rises there is limited, reducing the risks to office demand …
30th October 2020
European investment activity is likely to remain subdued into 2021, as pricing has been slow to adjust and investors continue to push back investment decisions in the current uncertain environment. CBRE data showed that there were no signs of a recovery …
29th October 2020
Recent data provide an indication that the virus outbreak will likely result in a faster online transition in Germany. The impact on instore demand will add to the pressures already facing retailers and suggests that there is downside risk to our forecast …
23rd October 2020
Depressed investment activity and a weak rental outlook are set to put upward pressure on office yields. That said, given that prime property values have been slower to adjust than we had initially anticipated, there is a risk that the yield rise we …
22nd October 2020
Even though lockdown restrictions had eased, office take-up in Paris in Q3 was still well below pre-virus levels. And the recent imposition of tighter restrictions in Paris will likely curtail leasing activity in Q4. With similar strict measures likely in …
16th October 2020
Government action has meant corporate bankruptcies have remained low, which has prevented a sharp rise in tenancy defaults and has supported income security on leases. But, as this support is gradually withdrawn, rising tenancy defaults in a weak occupier …
15th October 2020
The recent strength of retail sales data overstates demand on European prime high streets, with spending by tourists still absent and online purchases making an above-average contribution in most markets. That said, online spending growth has been …
9th October 2020
Retail has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis and lasting changes to online spending will bring further pain. While our estimates suggest that the impact is likely to be less severe than structural change in offices, the rental outlook is expected to …
8th October 2020
While we continue to think that this year’s property downturn will be milder than in past cycles, next year’s recovery is looking more fragile. This in part reflects revisions to our economic view, but also structural changes which are weighing on the …
1st October 2020
Despite the sharp drop in GDP, the relatively small fall in world trade has meant that industrial rents in port cities held up better than expected during H1. And we think that the ongoing recovery in global trade will prevent rents from falling this …
Recent moves in real estate equity prices suggest that there is upside risk to our forecasts for industrial property values this year. However, even the industrial sector will not be immune if rising virus cases lead to widespread lockdowns. Earlier in …
30th September 2020
Overview – Investment activity and rents have felt the impact of the virus, with the retail sector bearing the brunt. Indeed, after falling by around 2% this year, we think that Scandinavian retail rents will end 2020 4% lower than in 2019. And with …
28th September 2020
Overview – While economic growth is expected to continue to recover over the second half of the year, albeit at a slower pace than initially post-lockdown, it won’t be the end of falls in Emerging European property values. The sharp decline in retail …
25th September 2020
Overview – As widely expected, Q2 brought a range of disappointing data, from plunging investment volumes to further falls in retail rents. And while property values outside of retail have generally held up so far, fragile occupier demand and rising …
18th September 2020
As we have argued in our Global Property Focus , we think that some of the increase in remote working seen this year will become a permanent feature of working practices in office-based sectors in the coming years. In Europe, we estimate that this will …
14th September 2020
The falls recorded so far, most notably in the CEE region, coupled with our view that the initial recovery in retail sales in Europe has started to run out of steam, has prompted us to downgrade our prime retail rental forecasts for the euro-zone and CEE. …
10th September 2020
Even after the immediate threat of COVID has receded, we expect as many as 50% of office-based employees will work from home at least once a week. But the move away from cities and toward the suburbs should prove short-lived. Most of those leaving cities …
9th September 2020
The reversal in equity dividend yields following the virus-related market rout in March lead to a broad-based improvement in property valuations. (See Chart 1.) Coupled with central banks’ assurances that policy will remain accommodative for some time to …
3rd September 2020
Although the Norwegian economy is set to contract less sharply than most of Europe this year, the fact that weakness in occupier demand has occurred alongside a large boost to supply means that Oslo prime office rents will decline by a greater extent than …
2nd September 2020
Q2 data was a mixed bag as all markets recorded shifts in yields while only a handful of markets saw moves in rents. That said, Scandinavian investment activity took a significant hit in Q2, and despite the pick-up in June and July, transactions look set …
24th August 2020
Consistent with the sharp fall in economic activity, occupier demand weakened further in Q2. And with bargaining power shifting to the tenant, rental falls were also evident in many markets, with the sharpest declines recorded in the retail sector. (See …
20th August 2020
Investment and occupier demand plunged further in Q2. As expected, the retail sector bore the brunt of the impact, with capital values falling by almost 9% y/y. This drove down all-property capital value growth to just 3% y/y, the lowest since 2012 Q4. …
19th August 2020
With accommodative monetary policy anchoring bond yields, we think that yield compression in the euro-zone is set to resume next year. But the balance of risks have clearly changed post-virus. Yield rises in the face of the COVID-19 shock were inevitable. …
13th August 2020
Despite sharply lower investment in Q2, solid Q1 activity and the faster-than-expected economic recovery means we now think that total pan-Europe (ex UK) investment in 2020 will be only around 15% lower than its 2019 level. The disruption from the virus …
12th August 2020
We think that the enforced remote-working experiment of recent months will cause a dramatic demand shift in the office sector, with as many as 50% of office-based employees working from home at least once a week. Even with a heroic supply response through …
6th August 2020
Although demand for Romanian industrial space held up in H1, we expect it to weaken over the rest of the year as consumer demand falters and the economy recovers only slowly. Combined with incentives rising and the significant increase in supply in recent …
5th August 2020
We expect office-based employment growth to be faster than total employment growth by around 0.3-0.5% ppts each year over the next decade in the US, the UK and the euro-zone. The coronavirus crisis will dampen the outlook in the short run, but the less …
4th August 2020
A more favourable economic outlook should support occupier demand and thereby prime Dutch office rents over the next few years. And while the shift to more remote working poses a risk, we think that the Netherlands might be better placed to deal with the …
31st July 2020
The outlook for the Polish economy is better than in much of Europe. However, we still expect retail rents to end the year lower than in 2019, with the recent rebound in retail spending unlikely to be sustained. Despite the Polish economy holding up …
30th July 2020
Although banks expect to tighten lending standards, we think that the underlying situation is much better than pre-GFC and that government schemes will continue to provide support, which should limit financial strains for European property owners. Given …
23rd July 2020
Despite the deterioration in the rental outlook, attractive property valuations justify investor interest in Portugal, especially compared with its southern European peers. CBRE data confirmed that investment in Europe was hit hard in Q2 because of the …
22nd July 2020
