The recovery of the real estate sector has been noticeable this year in Barcelona. The city has received 28.32% of the 10,500 million euros of real estate investment executed throughout Spain in 2021. Since January, residential and office operations worth 2,974 million have been closed, which represents an increase of 47.51% compared to the 1,413 million registered in 2020, a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic.
The office segment accounts for a good part of these investments. Specifically, Barcelona will close the year with a total investment of 1,995 million in this type of property, according to data from the consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, reaching pre-pandemic levels. The 2021 figure represents a significant increase compared to the 755 million registered in 2020 and is also 13% higher than the 1,760 million euros registered in 2019.
The second city in Spain by volume was Madrid, which will close the year with a global investment of 2,063 million, an amount equivalent to 19.64% of all that Spain has received, and which is below the 3,366 million accounted for in 2020.
In the Spanish capital, the office investment segment will close this year with 665 million, a figure lower than that of 2020, a year in which 1,400 million were reached, and well below 2019, when around 2,200 million were invested in this market. According to sources from Cushman & Wakefield, this decrease is caused by the scarcity of product experienced since 2019. Meanwhile, in Barcelona, new urban areas are being developed with a significant presence of office projects, such as the northern area of 22@.
Investment in Spain has been 10,500 million euros in 2021, with a growth of 33%The consultancy specifies that the returns on office investments executed in the economic districts of the cities have remained stable and have decreased slightly in the urban surroundings. Although it highlights that increases have been registered in assets with a higher risk/return ratio and in opportunistic assets in decentralized and peripheral areas due to the increase in the availability rate and uncertainty regarding the trend of maximum rents in these submarkets.
The investment of 10.5 billion euros in Spain across all segments of the real estate sector is 33% higher than the figure recorded in 2020, which was 7.896 billion euros. But it falls somewhat short of the 2019 data, when operations worth 11.670 billion euros were closed, according to the consultant's report, which highlights that this trend is replicated in a large part of European countries.
The capital, mostly foreign, has focused on residential housing (26%) and office projects (25%), followed by assets in the industrial logistics segment (21%), hotel (18%), and retail (10%). It highlights that national investors have gained weight throughout this year and have carried out more operations than in the previous year.
The logistics sector, for its part, is the one that has registered the most changes since March 2020. The sector has in its favor solid demand, liquidity, and very attractive returns, making logistics products the target of the main international funds in key locations in the Madrid area, mainly.