The retail sector may have fallen out of favour with real estate investors but research from Savills suggests that the recent restructuring of retail parks across Europe is improving perceptions and driving investors back to the prime retail warehousing sector. Investment volume for the first three quarters of 2017 was nearly €6.6 billion, the firm says; this was 60 percent of the 2016 level and almost double the 10-year long-term average.

Overall, Savills says that retail warehousing volumes (including hypermarkets, supermarkets, retail parks and stand-alone units) in the eight principal European markets monitored by the firm have been rising at a significant pace (38 percent per year on average) since the bottom of the market in 2009. The total volume in 2016 (€11 billion) was 4.2 times higher than the total of 2007. The highest increases over the past decade were noted in Germany (8.8 times) and Sweden (5.7 times).

The two main markets were Germany and the Unite