Las empresas tecnológicas acaparan el 40% de la contratación de oficinas en Barcelona

The real estate sector in Barcelona has recovered from the impact of the covid outbreak and achieved figures in 2021 higher than those of 2019, a year that was already a record and allowed it to surpass those obtained in the last peak, in 2007. Total investment stood at 3,657 million euros last year, 24% more than in 2019, according to the consultant CBRE. The office segment has been the best performing, taking almost half of all investment and with the prominence of technology companies, despite the unprecedented generalization of teleworking caused by the pandemic and the still existing uncertainty about the absolute return to in-person work.

In this record year, the investment that the real estate sector has attracted in the Catalan capital has represented almost 30% of the total figure achieved in Spain, an unprecedented percentage that had not been obtained since the beginning of the historical series, in 2007. The increase in the total national weight represents a growth of five points compared to 2019 and allows it to be very close to Madrid, which has concentrated 34%.

According to the director of CBRE Barcelona, Xavier Güell, the reasons that explain this good performance are the tendency of capital to seek safe markets after a crisis and the good position that the Catalan capital has consolidated in recent years, as well as the availability of quality supply that investors were looking for. For this reason, Güell emphasizes that the dynamism of 22@ has been key to attracting new projects, especially offices, a matter that has allowed Barcelona to fare better than Madrid, without sufficient available assets to seduce demand.

Accompanying the office segment, hotels and rental housing have been the subsectors that have taken a good part of the investment, achieving 84% and relegating the industrial and logistics segment and, especially, retail. Investment in offices reached 1,657 million euros, 10% more than in 2019, and above 300 million square meters contracted. The closed operations have also been characterized by increasing the average investment compared to 2019. At a national level, this figure represents 70% of the total, with Madrid taking only 28%.

Large operations such as the sale of the Pentagon portfolio to the KanAm investment fund and the Sea Towers complex to Allianz are examples of this record year. "We would have to go back to 2007 to obtain data similar to last year's. Looking ahead to 2022, this segment is expected to continue leading investment in Barcelona and achieve figures similar to or higher than the 2021 record," says Marta Tarrío, Head of Research Barcelona at CBRE. Specifically, the consultancy expects the investment volume to be between 1,500 and 1,800 million euros this 2022, with 340 million square meters contracted.

One of the factors of this record investment in offices that shows Barcelona's technological leadership is that 40% of the contracted square meters correspond to companies operating in this new economic sector, explains Güell. Considering that it is experiencing a moment of expansion, the director of CBRE Barcelona argues that the Catalan capital faces good expectations for future real estate operations. Especially in the northern area of 22@, where there is still much space to develop.

The other two leaders of real estate investment in Barcelona, hotels and rental residential, have taken 778 million and 627 million euros, respectively. In the hotel sector, as in the office sector, high-value operations have been closed, which would not have been done before the coronavirus crisis, thus maintaining pre-pandemic prices and even higher. In the rental residential sector, which also includes coliving and student and senior residences, a record year has been experienced, growing by 116% compared to 2019 and with operations at the beginning of 2022 that confirm this positive trend, such as the purchase of 2,000 homes by the manager Patrizia, advised by CBRE, for an amount of 600 million euros.