The Spanish real estate sector just broke a historical record. In the first half of the year, this fabric has received 9,870 million euros of investment, a figure that is on track to double (+80%) the volume of the same period of 2021. They are, according to the CBRE real estate consultant -responsible for radiography-, “the best data since records have been recorded”.
According to this analysis, the segment that most investor interest wake up is the commercial section. These types of premises capture around 2,900 million euros (almost 30% of the total), a figure that, in this case, is eight times higher than that of the first half of last year. In this way, this is the real estate segment that has grown the most, although it has done so largely driven by a large operation: BBVA’s repurchase from Merlin of more than 630 of its old branches for almost 2,000 million euros.
There is also a considerable increase in investment in housing, which is the second sector that receives the most capital (2,400 million euros, a quarter of the total) and which grows another 70% compared to last year. In this case, although the buildings built to rent their homes and the private property in use remain as the assets that generate the most appetite among investors, the real estate consultant detects that operations are beginning to pick up around the student residences and of the call ‘living’.
Thus, together, commercial premises and housing account for more than half of the investment in the Spanish real estate sector. Below are the hotel sector, which records the best figure for the first half of the year for five years (1,650 million euros); the industrial and logistics field (1,175 million); the Offices, which maintain their upward trend, increasing their weight by 27% (1,000 million euros); and, finally, the alternative sector (600 million), where the “large number of operations” in the healthcare segment and especially around the residences for the elderly.
“The investment volumes registered in the first half of the year show that the real estate sector in Spain continues to be attractive for investors, even in a changing macroeconomic context”, analyzes the research director of CBRE in Spain, Miriam Goicoechea, which despite everything confesses that the economic turmoil may alter the trend for the second half of the year. “The existing volatility in the market will lead us to closely follow the evolution of investment throughout the second half,” specifies the expert.
House price rises
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This same real estate consultant had already warned at the end of May that it anticipated that the price of housing would rise by 3.6% this year. Specifically, that new construction would do so by 4.4% and second-hand construction by 3.4%. Until March, and according to the College of Registrars, the residential sector had already become more expensive by more than 10% in relation to the same period of the previous year. According to his analysis, in Spain, the average price of housing stood at 1,911 euros per square meter at the beginning of the year. In Cataloniathe fourth most expensive community in this sense, was 2,391 euros per square meter.
In any case, CBRE is clear that these price increases are far from being interpreted as a return to housing bubble. “The real estate sector is in a great moment, a fantastic year 2021 has been closed in transactions and 2022 is focused on it being so too,” said the vice president of the real estate consultancy in Spain, in May Javier Kindelan. “Spain is still a market with little supply compared to demand, hence the great potential of ‘living'”, concluded the manager.