Germany's real estate market has benefited from the economic turmoil that has plagued surrounding EU countries, a leading expert has said.
Germany's real estate market has benefited from the economic turmoil that has plagued surrounding EU countries, a leading expert has said.
Speaking at a panel of property professionals in London recently, Alexander von Cramm, CFO at Prime Office REIT, said that relative stability in the German economy was making the country a far more attractive prospect for investors.
Von Cramm said: ‘Europe will be moving sideways for the next couple of years, but Germany is benefiting from this crisis. We’ve done our homework. Our exports are continuously helping us, domestic demand is good, and unemployment is relatively low so there’s strong spending. I’m optimistic from a German point of view’.
The briefing, organised by PropertyEU and hosted by London law firm Squire Sanders, was aimed at identifying investment opportunities across all real estate sectors.
One of the key themes to emerge was the continuing stability in Germany’s overall economy, despite both demand and supply in the property sector remaining at acutely low levels and investment returns failing to show any significant increase.
Another panelllist Philip La Pierre, head of investment management Europe at Union Investment Real Estate, said Germany's stable characteristic was a great benefit.
La Pierre: ‘Stability is nothing new in the German market. It’s just that it seems that way because everything is deteriorating around Germany’.
He said: ‘It’s a defensive strategy; it’s not as cyclical in Germany and there aren’t the same ups and downs. That looks much more attractive to investors today. Boring is the new sexy’.
Marcus Cieleback, head of research at Patrizia Immobilien AG, presented a series of charts to the audience which highlighted Germany’s strong position in Europe. With the second largest overall investment volume behind the UK Germany takes the top spot in investors’ European-wide ‘wish lists’ of markets in which they are keen to buy stock.
See the links below for additional news stories and the full report from the event
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