Real estate sector prefers retail

Retail offers best perspectives

Retail remains the most wanted sector for investors:
of 500 respondents no less than 385 see favourable perspectives in that sector.
Investing in offices could entice 377 respondents, apartments get 299 votes.
Hotels (175) and industrial property (137) dangle at the bottom.

The breakthrough of e-commerce does not affect
their views, because an online sale often starts with a trip to the store by the
consumer. “In retail a busy Saturday for the shops often translates into a successful
Sunday online”, says Jean-Paul Ducarme of PwC Belgium.

Optimism at last

The positive attitude among real estate
professionals is striking: the optimistic figures are a first since the outbreak of the financial crisis in
2008. Profit forecasts and investment intentions have finally come out of the
red, even though not all structural market problems have been solved yet.

Meanwhile the European property market keeps on
getting more global: ever more investors come from upcoming markets, but
most of the invested funds still flow back to the top layer of the property market in
Germany and England, while Southern Europe is still getting the cold shoulder.

The complete results of the survey van be found
in the report ‘Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2013’, in which PwC
together with Urban Land Institute, which performs research into the usage of
land areas, performed a survey among over 500 large investors, property developers,
financiers and managers.