| Coronavirus to impact European real estate transactions
Another week, another round of coronavirus-related stories examining the impact of the pandemic on global real estate, with commercial property and the office market in particular coming under the spotlight.
According to Tom Leahy, Senior Director EMEA Analytics at Real Capital Analytics, the latest data shows that 'cracks are starting to emerge in European real estate transaction volumes, as IMF forecasts indicate the coronavirus crisis will result in the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s'.
In a comment piece meanwhile, Will Bryant, PERE counsel at Ropes & Gray, asks whether, given the likelihood of social distancing remaining a huge part of the new normal and the relatively seamless transition to remote working made by many businesses, the office market will ever be the same again?
Flexible office space could be one sector that sees an uptick as an uncertain world begins to get back to work. Providers will certainly hope so, with the latest figures from real estate adviser Savills showing that the uptake of flexible working space was already slowing in Q1, prior to the introduction of widespread lockdown measures.
NEXT is among the big name high street retailers to have been impacted massively by lockdown, but the company has been busy in some areas completing a GBP107 million sale and leaseback deal with Aviva Investors' Lime Property Fund for three distribution units totalling 110,000 sq m of floor space. And the company is clearly still looking to the future too, with news that it is to debut its new premium beauty retail format The Beauty Hall at five Hammerson shopping centres.
Property Funds World
|
