Tag: secondary cities

Spain’s Property Developers Glimpse the First Signs of a Moderation in Prices

29 May 2019 – Expansión

Yesterday, several of the largest property developers in Spain met for a Medcap roundtable event moderated by Deloitte to discuss the outlook for the residential market.

Specifically, representatives from Metrovacesa, Aedas, Quabit, Insur and Lar participated in the discussions, during which they observed that house prices in Spain are starting to moderate in some of the more mature markets, although they acknowledged that there are still many secondary cities where the new (growth) cycle is just beginning.

In this context, the representatives identified a number of focuses and challenges facing the sector, namely:

Licences: All of the property developers are pushing for great agility from the public administrations when it comes to the granting of construction permits.

Construction: The labour shortage in the construction sector is pushing up prices and leading to delays in project finishes.

Concentration: Property developers are larger and more professionalised now than before the crisis; they require critical mass to be resilient to real estate cycles.

Industrialisation: Prefabricated homes allow construction periods to be shortened and for greater control over the processes.

Access: Young people are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to buy a home.

Overall, the experts consider that the residential sector is still immersed in the early stages of the new cycle, but only time will tell whether they are right.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

CBRE: Investment in High Street Premises Will Exceed €1.1bn in 2018

5 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Commercial premises, especially those located on the most prime streets of Spain, are proving highly sought-after. According to CBRE, the high street investment market is going to achieve record figures in 2018, up to a total of €1.1 billion. The culprits? The German fund Deka and Inditex, in addition to the strength of secondary cities in the country.

During the course of the last two years, investment in high street assets remained stable at around €800 million per year, after peaking at €1.01 billion in 2015. In 2018, according to calculations from the real estate consultancy CBRE, the investment volume will exceed the €1 billion threshold again, primarily due to the impact of the sale to Deka of a batch of 16 Zara stores for €400 million and the boost from activity beyond Madrid and Barcelona.

Deka has whereby become a catalyst for the retail investment market in Spain, together with Generali and Union Investment, which also starred in major investment operations during the first few months of 2018.

Deka’s €400 million operation was the largest in the last year and a half, followed by the purchase by Hines of number 17 Paseo de Gracia for €113 million and the acquisition by Generali of number 9 Preciados for €107 million.

Institutional investors are the main drivers of the investment market in this segment, according to the Retail keys in Spain report in CBRE. “In recent years, several overseas institutional investors have entered the Spanish market and many have been active in 2017 and 2018”, according to the document, which points out that Socimis such as Tander, Ores and Silicius have also been interested in the sector.

Madrid and Barcelona are continuing to be the main magnets for high street investment in Spain and, together, they account for 79% of the total expenditure. “Nevertheless, other cities in Spain are booming and demand is rising for investment products in cities such as Bilbao, Valencia, Sevilla and Málaga”, says the document.

The displacement of demand to other cities is a consequence of product shortages and low returns. On the one hand, according to CBRE, operators have accentuated their preferences for prime streets, which has strengthened the shortage of products. “Premises with recently signed contracts are sparking a lot of interest, given that if they reflect market rents, they become a very stable long-term investment”, says the document.

On the other hand, the pressure on returns remains strong and in 2017, they were compressed further still, reaching levels of 3.25% in Madrid and 3.50% in Barcelona for the most prime products. The “historically low” values are repeated in other European cities, with 3.25% in Berlin, 3% in Milan, 2.75% in Paris and 2.25% in Munich.

As a result of those two elements, investor interest is extending to other cities in Spain, although the operations closed tend to be of greater importance, “given that the premises and the rents are lower and the returns are higher”.

With investment of €170 million outside of Barcelona and Madrid in 2017, several purchases stand out such as M&G’s acquisition of the H&M store on Reyes Católicos in Granada as well as of the El Corte Inglés building in Plaza la Magdalena in Sevilla.

Valencia and Bilbao are the markets that, typically, generate the most interest from investors due to the size of the two cities, the importance of their high streets and the role of tourism. The tradition of investment in the segment by local family offices means that returns there are compressed to 4%.

Retail and shopping centres

High street premises accounted for 25% of the total investment in retail in 2017, well behind shopping centres, which accounted for 51% of the total, but ahead of retail parks (15%) and portfolios of supermarkets and hypermarkets (9%) (…).

In Spain in 2017, investment in the Spanish retail market amounted to €3.3 billion. CBRE forecasts that the figure will amount to €2.9 billion in 2018, boosted by high street investment (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deka Finalises Sale of Part of Inditex’s Portfolio to IBA Capital for €100M

25 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Deka may have found a buyer for a portion of the portfolio that it purchased from the Galician giant Inditex. The German fund manager is currently holding negotiations with the Spanish fund IBA Capital regarding the sale of most of the premises that it bought from the fashion retailer at the beginning of the year for around €100 million, according to sources close to the operation, speaking to Eje Prime.

IBA Capital, which has declined to comment, looks set to buy more than ten assets located in secondary cities, given that Deka is planning to hold onto number 16 Calle Preciados, in Madrid (2,725 m2 of retail space) and number 58 Calle Pelayo, in Barcelona (5,134 m2 of retail space), as well as the properties it acquired in Portugal.

Thus, IBA Capital would purchase assets located in secondary cities (such as those located in  Zamora, Albacete and Ciudad Real) through the fund that it has just launched onto the market specialising in the high street segment. Deka acquired the 16 assets in January for approximately €400 million, with chains from the Inditex group continuing as tenants in all of the establishments.

These two moves, the purchase and the sale, demonstrate Deka’s interest in the Spanish market. According to Eje Prime, Deka’s roadmap involves doubling the investment volume that it has in the country from €1 billion to €2 billion over the next five years.

Currently, the fund manager owns a portfolio of tertiary assets in Spain, highlights of which include the office buildings at Avenida Diagonal 640 and Sarrià Forum in Barcelona and the mixed-use (offices and retail) El Triangle building, also in the Catalan capital (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

IBA Capital Creates a Fund to Invest up to €300M in Spain’s High Street

25 May 2018 – Eje Prime

IBA Capital is gaining strength as one of the investment funds with the most potential in the Spanish market. The company has just launched an investment fund specialising in the retail high street segment, through which it plans to invest up to €300 million in the purchase of commercial assets located on the main streets (high streets) of Spain’s secondary cities, according to Thierry Julienne, founder of the investment vehicle, speaking to Eje Prime.

This new vehicle from IBA Capital will bet on buying commercial premises on streets such as Calle Larios in Málaga and Calle Tetuán in Sevilla, for example. Also on IBA Capital’s radar are assets located in cities such as Valencia, Santander, Coruña, Oviedo and Vigo, amongst others.

“We want to create a portfolio of prime assets – we are not looking for properties to create value, but rather buildings are profitable with operators such as H&M, Mango and chains from the Inditex group as tenants”, explains Julienne, who also added that the stores that may interest the fund should have a surface area of around 1,000 m2.

“It is a safe fund, which has been created with an investment capacity of €100 million, but which may reach €300 million over the next few years”, he says. The type of investor to which this new vehicle from IBA Capital will be directed are “conservative and Spanish”, explains the director. “Family offices, for example, are target investors of this new fund”, he concludes. (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Urban Land Shortage Shatters Property Developers’ Dreams

15 January 2018 – Eje Prime

There is not enough land in the city for so many opportunities. That is the complaint that is increasingly being heard amongst experts in the real estate sector and above all, amongst residential property developers in the country, who warn that this problem is starting to take on a more serious tone. Not in vain, in the midst of the economic recovery, in one of the most critical moments of the upwards cycle (that has given confidence back to the house-building sector), available buildable land is scarce.

Real estate specialists like Anna Gener, Director General in Barcelona of the consultancy Savills Aguirre Newman, warns that “the sector is heating up a lot”, due to the shortage of land, given that property developers “by definition, can only purchase buildable land”, according to comments made in a recent interview with Eje Prime. In the opinion of the Catalan executive, “it is starting to become a matter of urgency for the public administration to take sides and streamline the procedures because, in certain areas of Spain, there is a genuine need for new homes…(…)”.

Whilst making her comments, Gener may have had in mind regions such as Madrid, Barcelona and Málaga. All three provinces are experiencing high demand for housing and they accounted for more than 50% of the total investment in land in Spain in 2017, with €3.5 billion spent there on urban land purchases. That figure represents an increase of 19% in recent quarters in relation to the number of property developer operations formalised, according to the Solvia Market View report compiled by the Spanish servicer, which analyses the real estate brokerage situation in the country.

Over the last twelve months, property developers have strengthened their presence in the Spanish residential market, starring in 74% of transactions, supported in many cases by investment funds that hold stakes in them. That fact, together with the aforementioned lack of land supply, has resulted in a 6.2% YoY increase in land prices.

Newly created companies such as Neinor Homes, Aedas Homes, Vía Célere and Aelca have led the current boom in domestic housing with ambitious land purchase plans. Their residential projects have breathed life and confidence into an activity that had been in decline following the real estate bubble of not so long ago, but they have caused the market to become more expensive again due to the increased competition to acquire the limited supply of buildable land available in the most sought-after areas.

In terms of amounts, operations of this kind were closed with prices ranging between €500,000 and €10 million in 60% of cases, whilst 15% of transactions exceeded the €10 million threshold (…).

Generating buildable land: a new line of business for 2018

In the Community of Marid, for example, the most sought-after buildable urban land is that allocated for residential use, above even that allocated for logistics use. As the main market in Spain for the buying and selling of land, the Madrilenian case exemplifies the constraints that the residential sector will have to battle against in 2018.

Firstly, the report from Solvia indicates that property developers will have to leave the city in search of buildable land on the outskirts. Areas such as El Cañaveral and the Corredor de Henares were the most sought-after places last year by companies in the sector (…). There is hardly any land left inside the M-30 (…).

The same applies in Barcelona. Buildable land is scarce both in the Catalan capital, and in its surrounding metropolitan area, which is leading some property developers to return to investing in towns in the second ring of the city’s outskirts, such as Sabadell, Terrassa and Granollers, amongst others, according to the report from the servicer owned by Banco Sabadell (…).

For this reason, one of the challenges for property developers this year is going to be to attract demand to new provincial capitals and markets. On the national map, the Solvia Market View report highlights cities such as Jaén, Pamplona, Oviedo and Valladolid. Regardless of where, what is in no doubt, is that the search for and acquisition of land for house building will continue for the next few months.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hotel Investors Switch Their Focus To Spain’s Second Cities

20 July 2017 – Expansión

Hotels have become of the star assets of the real estate sector with Socimis and investment funds lining up to buy them. And the forecasts show that these actors are set to consolidate their presence in Spain, gaining ground on the hotel groups – which will continue their commitment to a strategy focused increasingly more on management and less on ownership – and will analyse new secondary locations, in light of price rises and the decreasing yields in prime cities.

According to the Hotel Asset Management 2017 report, prepared by Magma HC, three-star hotels captured the attention of investors last year, given that they represent the most attractive asset for implementing repositioning models and improving prices. Specifically, 38% of the transactions closed in 2016 involved three-star hotels, 28% related to four-star properties, 24% to low-cost establishments and the remaining 9% to five-star hotels.

Albert Grau, Managing Partner at Magma HC, explained yesterday that the transaction market will shift its focus to the holiday segment, over the next few months, due to the (high) value of assets in prime urban destinations, such as Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, San Sebastián and Palma de Mallorca, which are at levels that compromise their future profitability.

Although in previous years, the urban hotel market was the most sought-after by investors, in 2016, it accounted for just 33% of operations, whereas the holiday segment increased to account for 66% of the total. “Prices in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have peaked, and purchases to generate wealth or profitability are complicated given the numbers”, said Grau.

By contrast, he considers that Spain’s secondary cities offer “great opportunities” for investors thanks to the significant potential that they hold and the fact that there are well-located assets there at “very attractive” prices.

However, the partner at Magma HC considers that the sector is a long way from a bubble, thanks to the greater professionalisation and the new requirements in terms of indebtedness levels.

Moreover, the report highlights that the Spanish hotel sector can expect to see new operations between hotel groups, such as between Starwood and Marriott, Fairmont and Grupo Accord and the purchase of Sidorme by B&B Hotels.

Commitment to rent

In terms of the business model, the most popular formula is still rental. Grau underlines that, given the strong performance of the market, owners who took the decision to bet on variable rentals are now receiving greater returns. In addition, the partner at Magma HC believes that the period of rent renegotiations, seen in previous years, is now over.

According to Magma HC’s report, hotel groups own 37% of their assets, lease 33% of them, manage 18% and operate 13% as franchises.

Grau explains that “more Anglo-Saxon” operations – management and franchising – are not growing, but continue to have a specific weight in the market and there is a growing trend to adopt them increasingly more, in line with international standards.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake