Strong Q4 brings Irish transaction volume for 2015 to €3.5b

A strong final quarter boosted Ireland´s property investment market to €3.45 bn in 2015, according to research compiled by JLL.

The last three months accounted for €1.2 bn worth of transactions and followed steady sales in the first three quarters.

JLL said supply was likely to slow down in 2016 as bad bank NAMA and other financial institutions round off their deleveraging activities.

The biggest deal of the year was the sale of Project Molly, a three-asset office portfolio sold by Lonestar for €350 mln. Eight other individual transactions recorded a volume greater than €100 mln, including some single-asset retail or office sales.

Hannah Dwyer, head of research at JLL said: ‘It is positive to see that there has been a continued strong supply of assets coming on to the market and that this has been met by both international and overseas demand. It is hoped that this continues into 2016.

‘Supply is likely to slow down from NAMA and banks as they bring their deleveraging activities to a close, although we can probably expect a few more large portfolio sales early this year. We also expect supply to come from recycling of assets by the private equity buyers.’