Matthew Vanston

Despite substantial market uncertainty, commercial property investment turnover reached €1.75 billion in Q3 2022, up 122% relative to Q3 2021. The Q3 total brings turnover for the first nine months of the year to €3.76 billion or €4.97 billion when the sales of Hibernia REIT and Yew Grove REIT are included, compared with €3.5 billion turnover during the same period in 2021.

Total investment turnover reached over €1.2 billion in Q2 2022, bringing turnover for the first six months of the year to €2 billion. In addition to this, the €1.1 billion sale of Hibernia REIT to Brookfield Asset Management closed in Q2. Like the sale of Yew Grove REIT in Q1, this transaction was completed by way of share purchase so is not considered an investment asset sale as such. Nevertheless, between standard transactions and REIT sales, the total spend on commercial property-related deals was over €3.2 billion in H1 2022, exceeding the €2.7 billion invested during the same period in 2021.

Robust levels of activity in the Irish commercial property investment market continued in Q1 2022 with €762 million invested across 31 transactions. This represents a decline of 37% relative to Q1 2021 – a factor of a limited supply of core investment opportunities as opposed to low demand.