Consider the average building. They have progressed from crustaceans to vertebrates to what is now emerging as a new level of intelligence, both as independent structures and as integrated components of smart developments or even smart cities.

Seeing over €2.3 billion of investment in 2020 alone – an notable uptick on 2019 levels which were €1.1 billion – the Build-to-Rent (BtR) market in Spain is certainly heating up. Indeed, according to a recent report from EY, 5.4 per cent of the 504,000 new homes due to be built in Spain over the next four years will be used for rent, highlighting how a shift away from home ownership is growing in prominence.

Game-changing discoveries and technological advances – not to mention demographic shifts – have propelled growth in life-sciences real estate over recent years. But in 2020, the incalculable need for laboratory space, vaccine manufacturing facilities and medical centres triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak sent the property niche into overdrive.

Round Hill Capital is buying a 12,800sqm site in Madrid for its first purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) development in Spain. The specialist real estate investor said the 500-bed scheme in the Aravaca district is expected to ready for occupation for the 2023/24 academic year. Nido Student, the specialist PBSA brand, will operate the development upon completion.

The COVID-19 crisis has not had a major impact on healthcare real estate assets and the sector is predicted to have a strong 2021. The property sector currently attracts approximately €6 billion to €7 billion of investment each year in Europe, but this is expected to rise over the course of the next decade. Southern European countries will contribute a large proportion of new developments and investments as countries such as Italy and Spain attempt to meet the needs of their rapidly ageing populations.

Cold storage is one subsector of industrial that looks to have a confluence of positive effects. The pandemic has encouraged a shift toward online grocery shopping. In addition, at least some of the vaccines for COVID-19 will require careful temperature controls.

Proptech can be both a disrupter and enabler for the incumbent real estate industry.
Proptech firms use existing and evolving technology to nurture new, innovative ideas to enhance transparency and operational efficiency within real estate, as well as to improve tenant experience and information flow.

With the property industry rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the residential sector has proven resilient. Figures for Q3 rent collection across Europe have generally been above 90% for residential – significantly ahead of office, industrial and retail.

If there has been one sector that has topped every real estate investor’s shopping list in recent years it is logistics. It is a familiar story now: the rise of e-commerce has fuelled huge demand for distribution warehouses and last-mile facilities. The fortunes of logistics property have essentially gone in the opposite direction to those of retail property, which has seen rising vacancy and corrections in pricing. COVID-19 has simply accelerated the phenomenon.

AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets has marked its entry into the European life science real estate sector by acquiring Kadans Science Partner in a deal believed to be worth half a billion euros. The €102bn real assets manager said, on behalf of clients, it has agreed to buy Kadans from funds advised by Oaktree Capital Management.

Operational residential investment (which comprises multifamily, student housing and senior living assets) accounted for 27 percent of global real estate investment in the first three quarters of 2020, up from just 16 percent a decade ago.

Halloween at shopping centres across the UK normally means spooky pumpkins, trick or treat trails, and plastic spiders. But this year, there were bigger fears: Intu, Britain’s largest shopping centre owner, has collapsed into administration, leaving the fate of some sites uncertain, while rival Hammerson is trying to turn itself round after scrambling to raise cash through a rights issue and asset sale. Valuations in the sector have tumbled.

AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets has partenered with Greystar Real Estate Partners and CBRE Global Investors to acquire four freehold student accommodation assets in Spain’s tier one cities of Madrid, Valencia and Málaga.

Global institutional investors are set to prioritise investments into real assets over the next 12 months, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to have a lasting impact on global economies and financial markets, according to the latest edition of Aviva Investors’ Real Assets Study.

A recent trend we’re seeing in the European multifamily sector is operators and developers aligning themselves with investors in order to form Joint Ventures (JVs) and provide forward funding.

Across Europe and mostly out of sight networks of data centres, cell towers and underground fibre-optic cable are moving and crunching vast and rising quantities of data, staving off – until now – the worst impact of a dramatic economic collapse which the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is causing.

There was a monumental €26 billion (£23.5 billion) investment into the European data centre sector for the first half of 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, according to a report by Knight Frank in partnership with DC Byte. This is over four times the $5 billion annual average figure and a colossal increase on last year’s $2 billion investment volumes. Take-up in H1 2020 was also 50% higher year-on-year at 282MW.

When we pick up our mobile phones, we expect them to work without fail, all the time. For that to happen, we need a massive network of digital infrastructure assets to send and receive signals to and from our phones, as well as all other connected devices. Cell towers are a key component of the wireless networks that keep us connected. That connectivity has become utility-like in nature and ranks with necessities such as water, gas and electricity.

Vertical farming is gathering momentum and venture capital and supermarket chains are among those taking an interest in the fast-evolving space, which involves growing food indoors in a controlled high-tech environment. By stacking soil on shelves, it essentially combines a greenhouse with a warehouse.

The Joint Venture plans to create a 5,000-unit portfolio of Build-to-Rent (BTR) across Spain, which will contribute to 12,000 direct and indirect jobs. The portfolio will be seeded with c. 1,400 units across five locations with a total initial investment of €250 million followed by another €325 million in the coming months. STAY, a subsidiary of Kronos, will operate the platform.