The German real estate industry has put its best foot forward in 2009, leading to a slight but noteworthy increase in King Sturge's survey-based Real Estate Climate metric for the first time in six months. The Real Estate Climate component of the broker's Real Estate Economy index showed a slight increase to 43.3 index points in January 2009, compared to 40.7 points in December last year.
The German real estate industry has put its best foot forward in 2009, leading to a slight but noteworthy increase in King Sturge's survey-based Real Estate Climate metric for the first time in six months. The Real Estate Climate component of the broker's Real Estate Economy index showed a slight increase to 43.3 index points in January 2009, compared to 40.7 points in December last year.
King Sturge said this meant that the mood among the 1,000 market players that the independent market research company BulwienGesa polls on behalf of King Sturge brightened for the first time since June last year. The brighter attitude is largely due to the upward trend of the Investment Climate. However, the Real Estate Economy index, based on macroeconomic data, continued its downward trend, dropping to a new all-time low of 124.8 index points from 126.9 a month earlier. But even here, the pace of the negative trend has slowed noticeably, King Sturge said.
'To be sure, the (real estate) economy is facing enormous challenges in 2009. Yet in spite of the relentless onslaught of bad tidings and a predicted economic downturn by more than 2%, there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel,' observed Sascha Hettrich, managing partner of King Sturge Deutschland.
