Cushman & Wakefield has published an annual report on the commercial real estate market in the retail and shopping mall segments. The study analysed the retail situation in Spain, including an analysis of the last two post-pandemic years.
The report states that there are 11.5 million square meters in 410 properties for shopping malls in the country, and this figure will grow in the coming months. In 2022, "Plaza Canalejas" (in Madrid) and "Open Mall" (in Lanzarote) added about 63,000 square meters of new space.
In 2023, the area of shopping centres is expected to increase by 86,000 square meters. The opening of "Jaén Plaza" (Jaén), "Marbella Plaza" (Marbella) and "Finca Gran Café" (Posuelo de Alarcon) will help this situation.
As for investments in this segment of the market, 2022 was the year of recovery of investment activity. In 2019, the volume of investments attracted to this market amounted to about 270 million euros. This was less than five years earlier, when the average investment volume was 1.8 billion euros. In 2020, only 2 projects were sold ("Puerto Venecia" and "Parque Principado"). However, these sales brought 1 billion euros to the market. In 2021, there was another decline in investment activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the general economic prospects. Key investors were cautious.
In 2022, investment activity became active again, and there were several major transactions, for example, the sale of shopping malls "Torrecárdenas", "Finestrelles", "Ribera del Xúquer" and "La Rosaleda". In general, the year ended with investments of 390 million euros. This is a smaller amount than those mentioned above, but higher than it was before the pandemic.
As for the "productivity" of the shopping centres and the levels of visitor influx, this growth was from 2% to 5% in annual terms for 2022. Cushman & Wakefield rely on its 35 shopping malls and retail outlets of over 1.5 million square meters. However, the indicators of the end of 2019 were not overcome, and the growth of visitors was 8% for the year.
According to Yola Camacho, Retail Capital Markets partner at Cushman & Wakefield in Spain, the retail market ecosystem is rapidly developing and adapting to modern realities blurring the boundaries between physical transactions and virtual commerce. Camacho notes that this instability in the financial markets and rising interest rates on lending are forcing investors to become more cautious, which affects the funds attracted to this sector.
Investors are increasingly focusing not on broad investments, but on point ones in the assets they are interested in. In their opinion, these assets have the best quality on the market. This will contribute to the growth of competition for investors. Asset liquidity is crucial in this situation and shows that shopping malls can create real value.