Recovery of the European property market will take longer and be paler than most people would have wished, Joe Valente, Head of Investment Strategy at Allianz Real Estate, told delegates on the second day of the annual IPD conference in Amsterdam on Thursday. 'We had a very virulent downturn. The inevitable consequence of that is that recovery will be pale, anaemic and drawn out. There's no way out of that.'

Recovery of the European property market will take longer and be paler than most people would have wished, Joe Valente, Head of Investment Strategy at Allianz Real Estate, told delegates on the second day of the annual IPD conference in Amsterdam on Thursday. 'We had a very virulent downturn. The inevitable consequence of that is that recovery will be pale, anaemic and drawn out. There's no way out of that.'

Valente said the economic ground had shifted again in the past two months in the wake of the Greek debt crisis. Pointing also to high levels of unemployment in countries like Spain, Valente said prospects for rental growth remained very weak. 'It will take five to six years before some eurozone economies are back to 2008 levels. Recovery prospects look better than they did 12 months ago, but we haven’t paid the bill yet for the debt burden.'

Citing a 5% office deal in Eschborn near Frankfurt, Valente added that prices in some locations were 'scary'. 'Frankfurt has sufficient office supply for the next five years. There is no fundamental basis in the leasing market for a 5% deal in Eschborn. It doesn´t make any sense. The industry has not yet seen the light, it hasn't seen the errors of its ways.'