Last year’s real estate investment volume numbers for Europe show that 2016 wasn’t as good for market participants of all kinds as 2015 — a preliminary total of €254.6 billion for 2016 against the record €323 billion recorded for 2015, according to Real Capital Analytics, so a fall of 21 percent — but 2016 was a good year for anyone who likes an interesting life and 2017 looks like being better still. That’s an ironic “interesting” as in the purported Chinese expression, “may you live in interesting times.”

The final impact of the rumblings that started to find popular expression with the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and the US presidential election and that are now beginning to be seen in mainland Europe is unknown at this stage, but impact there will be — either a gentle swell to the coast as the stormclouds gather, then pass, or a tsunami smashing into the shore as voter sentiment sweeps provocative and volatile forces into undreamed-of posi