This year is shaping up to become a record-breaker for commercial real estate investment in Europe after a first half in which transaction volumes rose 37 percent from the same period in 2014.

Real Capital Analytics recorded €135 billion of transactions in the first six months of 2015. The last time that volumes exceeded this level was in the first half of 2007. This has triggered warning signals for those who see current market trends mirroring what occurred prior to the real estate slump in the global financial crisis of eight years ago. They point to how yields are approaching historic lows in many markets and to the fact that higher-yielding peripheral countries are in vogue. However, there are some significant differences between H1 2007 and H1 2015 that support the general confidence of market participants that there will be no repetition of the painful experiences of second-half 2007 through 2009.