Norwegian property turned in a strong year in 2007, IPD said, with the Norwegian Annual Index posting a total return for the year of 18.3%. That is the highest return since the index began in 2000 and represents an increase of 0.7% on 2006. Property outperformed both equities and bonds last year, which returned 11.5% and 3.9% respectively.

Norwegian property turned in a strong year in 2007, IPD said, with the Norwegian Annual Index posting a total return for the year of 18.3%. That is the highest return since the index began in 2000 and represents an increase of 0.7% on 2006. Property outperformed both equities and bonds last year, which returned 11.5% and 3.9% respectively.

IPD said the All Property income return fell in 2007 to 5.8% from 6.7% in the year earlier and was the lowest recorded income return in its IPD Norwegian Index. Capital growth instead increased to 11.8%.

Norway's office sector was the top performing sector last year with an income return of 5.7% and capital growth of 12.4% leading to a total return of 18.7%. Retail and industrial sectors had total returns of 18% and 9.6% respectively. The weaker performance of the industrial sector was due to a low capital growth rate of only 3.3%.

The IPD Norwegian Annual Property Index is based on a sample of 542 properties from 14 portfolios covering NOK 112.4 bn (EUR 14 bn) at end-December 2007.