Real Estate for a changing world
BNP Paribas REIM has made three new appointments with effect from July 1, 2024:
Quarterly key statistics of the Brussels Office Market : Insights on key figures by office districts
Although the office sector saw the steepest fall in investment of any asset category in 2023, the market is gradually recovering, underpinned by a consolidation in take-up, a stable vacancy rate and rising prime rents.
Quarterly key statistics of the Brussels Office Market : Insights on key figures by office districts
The European Impact Property Fund (EIPF) has seen inflows of almost € 378m from European institutional investors and has acquired 10 assets in Europe since its inception in 2020. As per the requirements of article 9 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, the EIPF has demanding environmental targets. It is also seeking to diversify and continues to acquire assets in Europe.
Investment in European retail fell 40% in 2023 vs 2022, to € 26.2bn. Yet investor interest in retail assets is slowly gaining more traction in terms of investment market share (20% in Q4 23 vs 16% in Q4 22). “This level has not been seen for five years (20% in 2018). As a result, retail was the second least affected sector after hotels”, says Patrick Delcol, Head of European Retail at BNP Paribas Real Estate.
The slowdown in rental activity seen from late 2022 in some European markets then spread and was confirmed in 2023. This was due to the uncertain economic and geopolitical context and structural changes in the way offices are used. All told, take-up for the year came to 7.6 million sqm across the 17 main European markets*, down 19% vs 2022. This was 16% lower than the long-term average.
For the entire year, the take-up level stands at 308,000 sq.m. The activity showed resilience given the economic, financial, and geopolitical context, as well as the structural change in the office sector.
The investment market concluded a year of underwhelming performance, with €2.4 billion injected into Belgium's commercial real estate over the past 12 months.
In the new issue of Buzzwords (download now), BNPPRE explores real estate strategies that optimise the building sector in the long term. The 2050 European climate targets under the Paris Agreement encourage the implementation of concrete measures to reduce the energy consumption of buildings. With a view to accelerating this decarbonisation, data and innovation are currently at the heart of building management.
