With a further increase in already elevated levels of macroeconomic and geopolitical noise, 2025 has begun at pace. During the first few weeks of the year, government bond prices spiked to their highest levels since 1998 in the United Kingdom — a trend that has been replicated to a greater or lesser extent across the continent.

From a real estate perspective, this is only serving to layer additional fragility onto an already unsteady recovery. The market failed to take off in a way many expected in 2024 on the back of continued underwhelming economic performance and concerns that the expected pace of interest-rate cuts might have been overcooked.

Short-term macro volatility aside, there is belief that 2025 will mark the first year of the next real estate growth cycle — with markets having bottomed out in early 2024 — and will prove an exceptional vintage for investing. Inflation is not yet in line with central bank targets but has dropped to far more comfortable