Insights & Research

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Slowdown on Germany’s retail real estate investment market in the second quarter Current conditions dampen activity on the investment market for retail real estate

The background and trends that are pushing banks and savings banks to put their branch networks to the test, and as a result there are often branch closures as well as redesigns of bank branch networks, are extremely diverse.

In H1 2022, €35.6bn was channeled into the German real estate investment market, reflecting growth of a good 3% compared with the year-earlier period. This development is mainly attributable to a particularly strong Q1, however. The transaction volume in Q2 dropped notably due to heightened uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine, ongoing supply chain disruptions, inflation rates reaching new highs, and the recent significant increase in financing costs.

The seven most important and largest real estate markets in Germany account for the majority of the investment transaction volume. As the top seven locations, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart are analyzed below with regard to current market developments.

Due to a strong second quarter, Berlin's office take-up reached 335,600 sq m by the middle of the year, which is slightly below the previous year's figure. Compared to the previous year, the take-up in the second quarter rose by 42% to 197,000 sq m.