Diminishing consumer confidence has clearly fed into retail activity across Europe and most of its retail markets have begun to show news signs of distress.

Office usage rates are improving, but conversely, desk usage statistics indi­ cate that a  return  to "old  normal" working practices remains a long way off.

Expectations around the availability of equity and debt have sunk to their lowest level in Europe since the global financial crisis (GFC) as the real estate industry prepares for a "tough" year ahead.

If I were given a grosz every time someone mentioned real estate debt opportunities to me over the past few months, I would be able to comfortably pay my energy bills this winter and have enough left over to plug the considerable gap that falling REITs have left in my retirement savings portfolio.

MARK is expanding its urban logis­tics platform Crossbay with a second investment  vehicle  targeting  more than €2 billion in gross asset value (GAV).