CBRE Ireland has released figures for the volume and value of investment properties traded in the Irish market in the first half of 2019, which shows that 76 investment transactions extending to more than €1m in value traded in the first half of the year. In total, investment spend amounted to €1.478bn in Q2 2019, bringing total investment spend in the first half of 2019 to almost €2.1bn. There were 7 assets sold in the Irish market during H1 2019 that exceeded €100m in value, which boosted spend.
Irish Investment Spend 2013 to 2019 H1 2019
According to Marie Hunt, Executive Director & Head of Research at CBRE Ireland, “Recent guidance on interest rate movements bodes well considering the very substantial differential between 10-year bonds and real estate yields, which combined with economic, demographic and occupational factors makes a very compelling investment case for Irish real estate. On the back of this, there has been an encouraging volume of activity recorded in the Irish investment market over recent months (both on and off-market) with strong demand continuing to prevail for prime assets. Despite the strong volume of investment sales recorded in the first half of 2019, the transactional activity will be heavily skewed towards H2 in 2019 with the completion of several ongoing investment transactions having now carried over into the second half of the year. The fact that residential accounted for 43% of investment spend in the first half of 2019 and that three of the five largest transactions signed in H1 were residential investments is noteworthy.”
CBRE’s research shows that approximately 70% of the almost €2.1bn of investment spend in the first half of 2019 occurred in the Dublin market with office properties accounting for 37% of investment in the period. 44% of the investment in the commercial property investment market in the first half of 2019 was to Irish buyers. The largest investment transaction completed in the six-month period was the sale of the XVI residential portfolio to IRES REIT.
