1. Spain: Glamping hospitality properties draw investors
Open-air hospitality — call it camping, glamping or hybrid leisure — is attracting developer and investor attention due to increased demand and its ability to generate higher average daily rates. In regions like Europe and the Middle East, private equity investors and travelers looking for unique stay experiences are interested in the segment.
At the recent Atlantic Ocean Hotel Investors’ Summit in Madrid, industry experts with glamping exposure said hotel companies are increasingly adding separate outdoor accommodation divisions. Luis Amézola, associate director of real estate investment, hospitality and glamping at Meridia, said his firm is focused on growing outdoor accommodations in Portugal and Spain.
2. UK: Regional office occupiers cement ‘new normal’ leasing levels
Regional office leasing in the United Kingdom reached 7.6 million square feet last year after what Avison Young described as a strong fourth quarter.
The brokerage’s quarterly analysis of workspace take-up across the U.K.’s Big Nine cities — Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle — showed 2025 came in at 4% below 2024’s total. But analysts said last year’s figure was in line with the five-year average, demonstrating “ongoing resilience” and “signaling a new normal for demand levels” across the U.K.
3. France: Residential developers bank on sales rebound
Industry groups including the Federation of Real Estate Developers are counting on a recovery in demand for new housing this year in France, after years of slow sales of rental and for-sale units.
Pascal Boulanger, president of the developer group, said 2026 “will be the year of the real rebound in new housing.” Analysts said France’s issued building permits rebounded a bit in 2025, rising at an annual rate of 15.5% to reach 380,000 housing units. However, the recovery remains modest compared to the good years of 2015-2018, when more than 450,000 units were built annually.
4. Germany: Sovereign wealth fund expands real estate investments
Kenfo, Germany’s sovereign wealth fund that finances nuclear waste disposal, plans to invest more than €1 billion in commercial real estate by 2029, according to the fund’s investment manager, Etienne Naujok. The investment was announced at an investment conference in Berlin.
Fund officials said Kenfo, the country’s sole sovereign wealth fund, began diversifying into real estate around 2024, and the portfolio built up since then has a net asset value of just around €200 million to date. According to Naujok, the figure is expected to rise to €1.3 billion in three or four years. Fund operators waited for the real estate market to stabilize and are now also looking at properties under financial stress, among other potential investments.
5. Canada: Energy scarcity reshapes data center growth plans
The race to build data centers at a breakneck pace could lead to a future full of giant airplane hangars as the industry lays a big wager on artificial intelligence and the ability to power new facilities, according to panelists at a recent conference in Montreal.
“I’ve heard of developers planning these sites who are essentially saying, ‘If the AI demand isn't there, we’ll just rent it out as a plane hangar,” said Ariana Batori, a principal at investment firm Stonepeak. Analysts said the focus of data center operators on securing an adequate supply of electricity has become so strong that having the money alone is no longer enough to guarantee success.
6. US: Lights, camera, vacancy: Soundstages open across LA as some sit empty
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was joined last month by development executives, entertainment workers and city officials downtown to tout the opening of a gleaming new soundstage campus. But the $230 million complex built by East End Studios is still unleased, a sign of doldrums for the once-glimmering entertainment capital.
Despite the stagnation, some investors are in development mode as the region looks to use newly built real estate as a means to keep the production focus on the city and what it has to offer following years of muted filming activity.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.