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Over the past year, real estate investment has experienced great ups and downs. With the onset of the pandemic, many predicted a “bursting bubble”, but the reality that 2021 brought is completely different: in the second quarter of this year, investments increased 258% more than in the previous quarter, according to real estate consultancy CBRE Group. “This is not the 2008 real estate crisis”, summarizes Mikel Marco-Gardoqui, Managing Director and National Director of the Capital Markets Division of CBRE Spain. These numbers prove why investors are more optimistic, especially in certain sectors: logistics, rental housing or more modern and flexible work offices. What happened to get investors interested in this real estate market?
Marco-Gardoqui notes that the variables of real estate that affect investment - low interest rates and availability of square meters - remain the same as before, making Spain an ideal place to invest in this sector. “Property price in Spain is almost 40% lower than during the boom years in the real estate market, and this fact is very important as it continues to attract large and small investors,” says Maria Matos, director of research and spokesman for real estate portal Fotocasa.
Marco-Gardoqui emphasizes that the type of investors, what they are looking for and their country of origin have changed somewhat as a result of the pandemic consequences. Real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield's MarketBeat Spain report found that international groups are more active than domestic investors. “The share of foreign capital was two-thirds, similar to what was recorded in the period from 2015 to 2019”, the document says. But what is these investors' new favorite asset? The answer is: logistics sector.