Among commercial real estate investors, Germany is talked about as having seven top markets — the A cities — and a multitude of smaller B, C and D cities that cannot be termed secondary or regional but that often play off one or other of the top cities. Everyone is in agreement on the identity of these top cities — in alphabetical order: Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart. Where people are less certain is on the ranking of the top seven.

Does it matter which is the headline act, the top German city? Real estate investors will go where the opportunities are, regardless of whether the prospective deal is in a top city or in a smaller or somehow less attractive location.

But, yes, it does matter. Germany has always been a bit of an enigma for international real estate investors. France and the United Kingdom, the other two members of Europe’s property market triumvirate, are relatively easy to understand, with the respective dom