CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT RESTRAINS INVESTMENTS
Office investments continued to face a difficult environment in the second quarter. Besides the still challenging financial conditions and the still ongoing price discovery phase, the economic situation is also slowing down investment activity. At just under € 3.2 billion, the transaction volume in the first half of the year was consequently weak, as expected, and 75 % below the previous year's figure. The ten-year average was undercut by around two-thirds as well. Nevertheless, office properties have once again been the most important asset class so far this year, contributing around one third of the total commercial investment volume. The decisive factor for the low transaction volume is among other things the restrained investment activity of many companies as a result of the difficult overall economic situation and technical recession which has hit Germany. As a result, the performance of the occupier markets has been weak with a take-up 32% below the previous year's level. Even though the extent of the decline is not unusual given a negative GDP growth, it does lead to a certain degree of uncertainty among investors regarding the short-term outlook for the office markets.