Frankfurt am Main,
16
July
2018
|
13:56
Europe/Amsterdam

Very strong half-yearly result on the German office investment market

  • Transaction volume at €12.1 billion – up five percent year-on-year
  • Top 7 locations account for 83 percent of the transaction volume
  • Average prime yield of the top locations falls to 3.21 percent
  • Market share of international investors in marginal decline

 

The transaction volume on the investment market for German office properties climbed by five percent year-on-year, thus reaching €12.1 billion for the first half year. The average prime yield in the top locations dropped by just under 0.3 percentage points to 3.21 percent. This is a conclusion drawn in a current analysis prepared by the global commercial real estate services company CBRE.

Fabian Klein, Head of Investment Germany
Germany is one of the most attractive and safest office property markets for domestic and international investors.
Fabian Klein, Head of Investment Germany

Yield compression was also ongoing at mid-year due to the unabatedly high demand and limited supply, particularly in the core segment. Another decline in prime yield was registered in the office segment in the top locations of Düsseldorf, Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart. “The positive development of Germany’s economy, and the resulting demand for office space that is reflected in rising rents, means that office properties will continue to remain very attractive to investors,” Klein adds. “Investment activities will maintain their momentum in the second half of the year, which will bring the transaction volume in the office segment to around €25 billion by the end of the year.”

 

Many large-scale deals determine the market

In the first half-year, large-scale transactions dominated the office investment market. All in all, 36 transactions took place, each in a range of €100 million or more, with investments totaling €6.9 billion. Accordingly, the share of portfolio transactions declined to 11 percent. As in the commercial investment market, market activities generally focused on the Top 7 locations (83 percent of the transaction volume) that accounted for 29 of the deals above the €100 million mark.
 

International investors less strongly represented due to short supply

Similar to the overall commercial investment market, international investors were less active than in the same period in 2017 (41 percent, down 7.1 percentage points). This development was due to the short supply of the preferred core properties, also in strong demand by German investors, and not to weakening demand. In the first half of the year, investors above all from European countries outside Germany (22 percent of the overall volume), from North America (11 percent) and Asia (six percent, here mainly from Singapore and South Korea) acquired German office real estate.


Office investment market in a y-o-y comparison

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: CBRE Research, Q2 2018.


Investment volumes, net initial yields & yields of 10y government bonds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: CBRE Research, Q2 2018.


Prime yield for office properties by submarket cluster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: CBRE Research, Q2 2018.


Office investment volume by location

 

Source: CBRE Research, Q2 2018.

 

Contacts:

Fabian Klein
CBRE GmbH
Head of Investment Germany
+49 (0)69 17 00 77 55
fabian.klein@cbre.com

Jan Schwarze
CBRE GmbH
Associate Director Research
+49 (0)69 17 00 77 150
jan.schwarze@cbre.com

 

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More information on CBRE:

CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2017 revenue). The company has more than 80,000 employees (excluding affiliates), and serves real estate investors and occupiers through approximately 450 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide.

CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services for the entire lifecycle of a property, from strategic and technical advice such as in sales and acquisitions or renting and letting, to managing and valuing properties to portfolio, transaction, project and facility management. CBRE offers individual advice for all asset classes from a single source.

Since 1973, CBRE Germany has been represented by its head office in Frankfurt am Main; there are further branch offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Essen, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart.. www.cbre.de