1. Italy: Hotels poised for more growth
If one hotel region in Europe checks all the boxes for sustained growth, at least in the short term, it might well be Italy, according to industry professionals gathered for a recent conference in Rome.
Elisabetta Fabri, president and CEO at Starhotels Group, said getting tourists to Italy was not a problem for the past 20 years or so, pandemic notwithstanding. Fabri said Italy’s tourism potential is underscored by the statistic that only 20% of tourists have ventured to the smaller cities and towns of Italy — places that include “A-list” destinations such as Assisi, Bologna, Lecce, Palermo, Pisa and Siena, that perhaps elsewhere might be the principal jewels.
2. UK: Blackstone launches major logistics CMBS transaction
A Blackstone division launched a £510 million commercial mortgage-backed securities transaction collateralized by a major portfolio of United Kingdom logistics properties.
The company said a loan being sold by financial services firms Natixis and Societe Generale is backed by 114 industrial properties owned by Blackstone’s Indurent business and spanning 9.2 million square feet, most of them linked to e-commerce. In August, Blackstone completed and priced the United Kingdom’s largest commercial mortgage-backed securities sale since the global financial crisis, a £1.5 billion deal involving Haven holiday parks.
3. France: Europe seen as safe haven for real estate deals
France and other European real estate regions are being viewed as relatively safe for investments at a time of rising global uncertainty, according to Mike Bessell, managing director and European investment strategist at Invesco Real Estate.
Bessell told Business Immo that investors are “generally positive” about European real estate, even as confidence has recently been rocked by trade tariffs and other global tensions. “They understand that in Europe, real estate yields are back above financing costs, which is a very important factor in being able to use debt profitably,” Bessell said, adding that “we are also benefiting at the moment from the fact that Europe is seen as a safe haven in a difficult world.”
4. Germany: Office vacancy rises amid tenant turnover
The overall vacancy rate for Germany’s seven largest office regions rose 1.9 percentage points from a year earlier at the end of the third quarter, reaching 8.7%, even as new leasings topped year-earlier levels by around 5%, according to data from the GPP broker network.
Analysts said Frankfurt recorded a 77% annual increase in space take-up to reach 480,800 square meters, thanks to large leases by Commerzbank, KPMG, and ING Bank. But declines in new leasings were posted in cities such as Stuttgart, Berlin and Munich.
5. Canada: Retirement homes grow scarce as construction slows
Finding a home in a seniors housing complex in Canada is becoming more difficult as demand from an aging population increases and construction on new units slows.
In the second quarter, the occupancy rate for the national seniors housing market rose to 91.5%, a significant increase from its pandemic low of about 78% in 2021, according to a report from brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. “This widening gap between supply and demand is expected to put additional pressure on available inventory,” Cushman Vice Chair Sean McCrorie said.
6. US: As AI demand soars, here’s what can go wrong in data center development
Nvidia’s recently announced deal to invest $100 billion in ChatGPT parent OpenAI is the latest in a seemingly never-ending run of ambitious artificial intelligence projects, a euphoric climate that may mask underlying risks in the development of high-demand data storage real estate.
Ever-larger investments by the likes of Google and Meta demonstrate a bullish outlook for the sector because AI promises a transformative future with unprecedented leaps in automation, personalization and productivity. But some analysts are sounding the alarm about a complex environment that could conspire to cause some data storage projects to go awry.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.