Logistics outperformed all other real estate sectors in the UK this year – despite a year-on-year fall in returns – according to a new index by CBRE.

The benchmark tracks the performance of modern warehousing property, covering 280 assets with a combined capital value of £8.22bn (€9.67bn).

The total return for UK logistics for the first half of 2016 was 4.4%, down from 8.9% in the second half of 2015.

Logistics outperformed the wider industrial sector and all-property, which saw returns of 3.6% and 3%, respectively.

The logistics performance comprised 1.7% of capital growth and 2.7% of income return.

Andrew Marston, director in CBRE’s UK research team, said the index confirms why the logistics sector has been such a “popular choice amongst investors in recent years”.

He said: “Regardless of whether we look at a holding period of one, three or five years, logistics real estate has consistently outperformed both all property and all industrials in terms of total returns, capital growth and rental value growth.”

Marston said the annualised total return for the three years to the end of June 2016 for logistics is 19.9%, compared to 11.3% for all industrials and just 8.8% for all property.

CBRE said capital growth has been hit, having grown by 5.9% in the second half of 2015, in part due to the impact of changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax in the UK government’s 2016 budget.

Rental growth rates have remained stable.

Rental value growth in the six months to June 2016 was 2.2% nationally, unchanged from the second half of 2015.

At a regional level, the highest returns in the first half of 2016 were in the north of England, where the total return was 6.9%.

CBRE said that, due to the timings of valuations that comprise the index, it is too early to measure any impact of the result of the UK’s referendum on EU membership.

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