London popular with real estate investors

In spite of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, a recent survey has found that London Remains ‘Most Popular European City’ for Institutional Real Estate Investors.

According to a new study by BrickVest, following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, nearly two in five (38 percent) institutional real estate investors cited London as the top European city to invest in commercial real estate. This places the UK capital ahead of Berlin (36 per cent), Munich (31 per cent) and Paris (22 percent). However, one in five (21 per cent) cited both Dublin and Hamburg and a further 16 per cent selected Frankfurt, highlighting a clear positive trend towards German commercial real estate. Indeed. 40 per cent of the top ten European cities were German.

BrickVest’s research showed that three in ten institutional investors believe Brexit will either increase or significantly increase European commercial real estate investment opportunities. A further 23 per cent of institutional investors believe that Brexit will have no impact on commercial real estate investment opportunities in the UK.

The research did, however, highlight some concern regarding the illiquidity of commercial real estate investing. Three fifths (61 per cent) of respondents do not believe that, in light of £1.4 billion being pulled from UK property funds post Brexit, real estate investors have enough access to a secondary property investment market.

Emmanuel Lumineau, CEO at BrickVest, commented: “Our research has identified London as the number one European city to invest in commercial real estate as investors seek to capitalise on potential price discounts and market uncertainty. However, Germany dominates the leaderboard and we have seen plenty of appetite from investors looking to capitalise on income producing portfolios across Europe and take advantage of the Brexit vote.”

He added: “To create liquidity in the market you need to have a lot of buyers and sellers who trust that the market is far, regulated and prices are transparent. On that basis, people can trade”.

Top ten European commercial investment destinations:

  1. London
  2. Berlin
  3. Munich
  4. Paris
  5. Dublin
  6. Hamburg
  7. Frankfurt
  8. Barcelona
  9. Zurich
  10. Amsterdam

Article published 28th October 2016