Real estate investment in Barcelona maintained record figures in 2022, capturing a total of 3,586 million euros, in line with the 3,654 million euros registered in 2021, when the covid was left behind and the operations achieved in the pre-pandemic years were exceeded . This "frantic" trend of the last two years, according to the head of CBRE Barcelona, Xavier Güell, will give way in 2023 to a slowdown in activity, framed by issues such as the increase in interest rates, high inflation and layoffs. advertised by big tech companies.
This will place real estate investment in Barcelona between 2,500 million euros and 2,900 million euros this year. It will be a figure similar to that registered in previous years, such as in 2016 (2,517 million euros) or in 2019 (2,951 million euros), which were the best data in the historical series until 2021.
“The slowdown in investment activity began in September 2022 and will foreseeably last until the end of the first half of this year. From this moment on, we expect a gradual recovery in investment activity. This does not mean that investment activity will disappear in the first half of the year. The activity will exist and we will see operations, but the rate and number of operations will be lower”.
Beyond the cooling of the market, not exclusive to the city and extendable to the rest of Spain and Europe, CBRE points out that the Catalan capital has consolidated with the figures for 2022 the turning point that occurred in 2019, when real estate investment approached to the border of 3,000 million euros, with 2,951 million euros. “Barcelona went to another dimension. You could think that it was a one-off, but in 2021 we saw that it was not and the definitive test has come this 2022″,
The sector continued to be dominated by offices, which accounted for 30% of the investment with 1,100 million euros, a trend that has not been maintained in the rest of Spain. This segment attracted 42% of all operations carried out in the country, a figure lower than that of 2021, when it was 70%, but which continues to show the dynamism of the Catalan capital, taking into account that it has half of stock than Madrid.
The 22@, especially the northern zone, continues to be the main explanation for these figures. Since 2019, the city's technological district has accounted for more than 50% of investment in offices, where, in addition, higher ticket operations take place.
One of the trends that is taking place in the office segment is that of flexible work spaces, such as coworkings. 3.3% of the available stock corresponds to this type, which makes Barcelona the third European city with the greatest weight, behind only London and Amsterdam.
Despite the leadership of the branches, the other segments that have found their way onto the podium have been living (28%) and industrial and logistics (18%), both with considerable growth compared to previous years and reducing the historical weight of the Offices. The living room, with most of the investment allocated to rental housing, closed 2022 with 1,010 million euros, 59% more than in 2021. The great protagonist was Patrizia's purchase of 1,500 homes from BeCorp, for 600 million euros . The industrial leg obtained 662 million euros, almost doubling the figures for 2021, despite the low availability of land in the first ring and the second ring, where demand is concentrated.
Posted thenewbarcelonapost – CRISTINA MARTÍN VALBUENA | 26 JAN 2023
