The European real estate market will remain attractive in 2015 due to the large number of forced sellers, according to Jonathan Lurie, managing director at the real estate group of US asset management giant Blackstone.
The European real estate market will remain attractive in 2015 due to the large number of forced sellers, according to Jonathan Lurie, managing director at the real estate group of US asset management giant Blackstone.
‘I think 2015 is going to be an extension of 2014 in terms of the amount of investment opportunities in Europe, in the UK and Turkey and in all the major asset classes as well including hospitality, residential, office and retail. We’re still operating in an environment with a lot of forced sellers. There are funds out there that need to close down, public companies that are selling assets in order to focus on their core strategy, so I think there are going to be a lot of high-quality assets coming to the market.’
Lurie made the comments at PropertyEU’s Europe/UK Outlook Investment Briefing held at the London office of Colliers International on Tuesday. Pricing levels are also favourable, he added. ‘Because pricing is starting to move up generally in Europe, people have become less afraid of selling. They now know that values are going up and that they can get a fairer price in 2015 that they couldn’t get in 2011 or 2012.'
