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Despite the doom-mongers, central London remains the most popular location in Europe for commercial property investment.
Prices slumped 50 per cent in the two years to last July before a modest pick-up, while the weakness of the pound has also made the capital attractive to foreign investors.
The survey for PricewaterhouseCoopers showed sentiment had improved, beating New York and Washington DC. “The worst may be over and the bottom has been reached for London,” said PwC's head of real estate, John Forbes.
Sales of offices in central London hit £6 billion in the second half of last year — more than double the figure for the previous six months. Headline grabbing deals included South Korea's national pension fund spending £1 billion on HSBC's Canary Wharf building.
The PwC figures backed an earlier American survey which showed London offices at the top of investors' shopping lists.
More than 600 investors, developers and bankers took part in the survey by PwC and the Urban Land Institute. It found Munich, Hamburg, Paris and Istanbul were the other most popular European targets.
However, the European property market faces a long, slow haul overall. Urban Land chairman Alexander Otto said: “We are looking at a crawl back up the hill, and how much values recover will depend on where Europe ends up.”
Respondents cited concerns that governments would withdraw or reduce economic stimulus packages too rapidly and derail the market's growing stability.
Reader views (1)
Awesome area for business dealing and new office.
Thanks for sharing your post about that.
- Cleondann, USA, 11/02/2010 07:05
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