Recent figures point to the start of the next growth cycle in Germany’s office real estate market. What makes the market particularly attractive is that it combines stability, size and positive growth prospects — especially if value-add strategies are applied for the purpose of repositioning portfolio properties.

Investors are more optimistic about their prospects for capital commitments in 2025 compared with their actual commitments in 2024, according to the 2025 Institutional Real Estate Investor Trends, Institutional Real Estate, Inc’s annual survey of global investor sentiment. This marks the 29th year of the survey and its 12th year gathering responses from investors globally. For the first time this year, investor respondents were segmented by region for ease of comparison among regional perspectives.

In my past two columns, I wrote about some of the people who have made major contributions to the development of the Institutional Real Estate, Inc platform since our very beginning in 1987. In this final tribute, here are a few more of the many, many people who have helped guide and support the development of our business over the years.

Investors, asset managers and designers are increasingly recognising the diversity of new data centre occupiers’ needs and are adapting their proposals accordingly. This change will only increase as the market matures. The UK’s data centre market is experiencing rapid expansion, driven by surging demand from data-intensive industries, increased investment appetite, and evolving occupier needs.

The European commercial real estate sector is somewhat protected from many of the negative effects stemming from uncertainty over the US government’s tariff policies, says Cushman & Wakefield. In a new report, called Trump 2.0: The First 100 Days, the consultancy says Europe is in a strong position with resilient economies, steady demand for real estate and early signs of improvement in investment activity.

European life sciences markets are gaining momentum as global demand drivers continue to push growth in the sector. Western European countries such as Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, are leading a rebound in global life sciences venture capital investment, says CBRE in its Global Life Sciences Atlas report.

Blackstone has held a final close for its latest European real estate fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe VII (BREP Europe VII). The fund has raised €9.8 billion of total capital commitments, making it the largest European real estate drawdown fund ever raised based on third-party capital commitments.

Turbulence has dominated the global economic and geopolitical landscape in the past couple of months, and so it comes as no surprise that the year ahead may carry more uncertainty than the European real estate markets have set out for. The latest INREV Market Insights reflects this outlook, revealing that investor sentiment across the board has declined in recent months, and sensitivity to risk amongst investors has increased significantly.