Spanish home prices rose the most in at least eight years in the third-quarter, strengthening the foundations of the country’s economic recovery.

Values climbed 4.5 percent in the period from a year earlier, according to data released by Spain’s National Statistics Institute on Thursday. That was the fastest clip since the institute, known as INE, started publishing real estate data in 2007. There was a 0.7 percent increase from the previous quarter.

Spain has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the euro area as exports surge and investment rebounds. The country is on course to post the strongest growth since 2007 this year.

The European industrial and logistics property market is on track to set new records for both take-up and investment in 2015, and the longer-term sector outlook remains positive despite geopolitical risks, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield.

The latest Property Times European Logistics market report reveals strong demand from developed economies is offsetting the slowdown in emerging markets. Industrial production and exports are showing reasonable growth, with CEE countries expected to make the strongest gains over the next five years.

Capstone Equities Management, a distressed debt fund focused on real estate, has become the first foreign investor to complete a large corporate restructuring under new Spanish bankruptcy laws introduced last year.

The New-York based fund has gained control of Promociones Habitat, a Spanish residential homebuilder, after buying €675m of its bank debt in 2014.

Some of the world’s largest private equity groups have been snapping up distressed real estate loans in Spain following the bursting of the country’s property bubble and banking crisis five years ago.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset manager, plans to buy as much as 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) of continental European properties over three years -- more than doubling its pace of investment -- as its clients seek to take advantage of a weak euro.

"Investors, particularly from the U.S. and Canada, are looking to diversify into European real estate," said Thomas Mueller, a portfolio manager who joined BlackRock’s London office in February to oversee an increase in investment focused on office buildings in France and Germany. "The devaluation of the euro is clearly an interesting play for them."

Norway's $850 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, would invest in renewable energy, transport and grids if it were allowed to put money into unlisted infrastructure projects, the fund's CEO told Reuters on Tuesday.

His comments came after the Norwegian central bank recommended the fund should be allowed to invest in such projects and to put a higher share of its assets in real estate, changes that could represent the biggest shift in the fund's strategy since it was allowed to invest in real estate in 2010.

Spanish construction, power and industrial group Acciona SA is preparing a potential initial public offering of its real-estate unit for next year as it increases its focus on renewable energy amid surging demand for green power.

“It would be a Spanish IPO, most likely, because it would be focusing on Spanish real estate,” chairman Jose Manuel Entrecanales said in an interview on the sidelines of the Paris climate summit on Monday. Real estate is “not super core” to Acciona’s focus on solar and wind power, and the company would probably retain only a minority stake after a flotation, he said, adding that a direct sale of a stake to a strategic investor is also a possibility.

Acciona is moving away from real estate as investment rises rapidly in renewable energy, encouraged by carbon-reduction targets that governments are discussing in Paris this week. Its energy revenues climbed 37 percent in the first nine months of the year, to about 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion), and represent its second-largest business line after infrastructure.

As a country attracting a new diversity of operating platforms and investors, Spain is the new frontier of Mediterranean investment, according to sources.
 
Speaking during a panel titled “The real investors: Who is investing, and what are they looking for,” at the inaugural Mediterranean Resort & Hotel Real Estate Forum, it quickly became clear that there is a bounty of private equity capital available in Spain, and a lot of investors are interested. 
 

The decision by the European Central Bank to extend its quantitative easing programme will sustain commercial real estate’s appeal to investors by keeping Eurozone interest rates and bond yields at record low/negative levels, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

However, the most attractive opportunities are likely to be found outside core Eurozone markets where yields have already fallen to pre-crisis lows or below them.
 
The ECB has cut its deposit rate to -0.3 per cent from -0.2 per cent, and has extended its QE programme of asset purchases by six months, to at least March 2017.

Institutional real estate portfolios have generated an average investment annual return of 10.9 per cent over the past three years, with annual returns increasing substantially year-over-year since 2012.

This article was meant to be about the outlook for real estate investment markets in Europe in 2016 and beyond. It still is, and the outlook is pretty good — in summary: more of the same, barring unexpected shocks, at least until interest rates start to rise (which could be soon) and maybe even after that — but it quickly became clear that the article cannot be kept within that narrow confine; and nor should it.

Overseas real estate investment from the Chinese insurance industry is predicted to grow sharply in the next few years with USD73 billion expected to be allocated globally by 2019.

A series of successive deregulation policies led by the Chinese government has allowed expansive investment potential in the last six years. China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) first permitted domestic real estate investment in October 2009 and prior to this, companies were only able to own properties for self-use. In contrast, today’s regulations allow up to 30 per cent of total assets to be allocated to real estate and 15 per cent in overseas investment, thus providing huge scope for accelerated investment.

Overseas real estate investment from the Chinese insurance industry is predicted to grow sharply in the next few years with USD73 billion expected to be allocated globally by 2019.

A series of successive deregulation policies led by the Chinese government has allowed expansive investment potential in the last six years. China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) first permitted domestic real estate investment in October 2009 and prior to this, companies were only able to own properties for self-use. In contrast, today’s regulations allow up to 30 per cent of total assets to be allocated to real estate and 15 per cent in overseas investment, thus providing huge scope for accelerated investment.

The Prologis European Properties Fund II (PEPF II) has acquired a logistics park, totalling 27,300 square metres, formerly managed by CBRE Global Investors, at Fogars de la Selva, Barcelona.

The park consists of two buildings of 11,700 and 15,600 square metres respectively; the first facility is leased and the second is currently being marketed. It has direct access to the A-7 motorway, a key logistics artery, connecting the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of Europe.

GreenOak’s Spain-focused Fund has acquired 320,000 square meters of real estate assets in multiple transactions, primarily in Greater Madrid, and has €700 million of investment capacity for Spain.

GreenOak’s Continental European Private Equity Real Estate Fund, dedicated primarily to Spain (the “Fund”), had its final closing in July, only eight months after its first close, with commitments hitting the fund’s “hard cap” of €250 million early, and doubling its target equity raise of €100-€150 million. The Fund is denominated in Euros and is fully discretionary.

With Fund portfolio leverage targeted to be at 65%, GreenOak can acquire or develop real estate with a cost of over €700 million. In addition, GreenOak has retained flexibility to bring in co-investors to invest alongside the Fund in select assets, further increasing GreenOak’s overall investment capacity.

Blackstone is to launch a new €7bn European real estate fund next year, according to a US pension fund.

San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) will discuss a potential €100m commitment to the fund at its board meeting on Thursday.

According to SFERS board meeting documents, Blackstone is preparing to launch Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe V in the first quarter of next year.

Marriott International Inc. is buying Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. in a deal valued at $12.2 billion to create the world’s largest hotel company, emerging as the surprise winner of a bidding war that reportedly included Hyatt Hotels Corp. and multiple Chinese suitors.

Marriott offered to pay $2 a share in cash and 0.92 of its own stock for Stamford, Connecticut-based Starwood, the companies said in a statement on Monday. The combined company will operate or franchise more than 5,500 hotels with 1.1 million rooms worldwide.

Continental Europe is following the US and the UK into a phase of solid economic growth, rental growth is improving and there are opportunities to boost returns by investing in the region’s affluent second tier cities.

That’s according to the latest research by M&G Real Estate, whose ‘Continental European Outlook’ reports that consumers are the driving force behind the region’s economic recovery, resulting in the Eurozone posting nine consecutive quarters of economic expansion and on track for more. 
 
The report suggests that High Street shops and shopping centres in gateway European cities will continue to see the strongest rental growth as international retailers move into Europe to take advantage of increased consumer spending. Strongest rental growth predicted for main Southern European cities of Spain (3.6 per cent) and Portugal (4.4 per cent).

Industrial commercial property assets across Europe are offering investors the best return for their money with Frankfurt, Madrid, Riga, Vilnius and Antwerp in particular looking under-priced.

Cushman & Wakefield's European Fair Value Index published today identifies Europe’s most attractive office, retail and industrial markets for prime commercial property investment on a five year hold period. The report shows that Europe still offers plenty of opportunities to invest, with 47 markets classified as under-priced in the Q3 analysis. Central and Eastern Europe, the Eurozone Periphery and the Benelux regions have the highest share of under-priced markets and boast the most attractive opportunities for investors.
 
The overall Fair Value Index for Europe was 62, the same as for Q2 2015, meaning that opportunities for investors are broadly unchanged.

Rental growth rate across the commercial property sectors will almost double over the next few years compared with the rate experienced over the past five years, according to the latest Fundamentals briefing from Legal & General Property (LGP).

LGP expects rental growth to average around 3 per cent annually from 2016-2018, nearly double the rate experienced over the past five years (1.5 per cent pa), according to its latest “Fundamentals” research report.  Office and industrial sectors are predicted to see the most rapid growth; while, although there is likely to be some recovery for retail rents, it is expected that this will be relatively muted.
 
Rental growth is already on the up, driven by stronger tenant demand and a shrinking supply of space. Since peaking in mid-2010, the volume of available office and industrial space has fallen 28 per cent and is more pronounced for the best quality space.

For more than 150 years, elevators have gone in two directions: up and down. In the future, you might ride them sideways.

ThyssenKrupp AG this week will show the public for the first time a 10 meter (32 feet) functioning model that uses giant magnets to move cars in multiple directions. The technology, called magnetic levitation, is borrowed from high-speed trains and doesn’t rely on cables. The German industrial company says the system allows for multiple cars in one shaft and can increase transport capacity as much as 50 percent.