According to the consultant’s predictions, investment will remain the priority within the sector, according to 77% of the «Portuguese Real Estate Investment Survey’s» respondents. They believe investment will have a bigger impact on the sector this year (70%) besides the debut of new players on the market (54%).
Jorge Marrão, Partner and Real Estate Leader at Deloitte Portugal, comments that «the agents within the sector finished last year with great confidence and have high expectations for this year. We keep having good reasons to believe this good moment will continue and that Portugal will remain attractive for both foreign and domestic investors».
Value added are the assets of choice
A large part of the players surveyed (38%) intend to increase their portfolio in more than 10% and point out the value added assets (31%) as their preferred choice of investment, followed by core assets (23%) and opportunistic deals (23%).
In 2019, the Value Added assets (31%) will benefit from more investment from real estate agents and hotels (62%), offices (54%) and retail (31%) are the preferred sectors for investment.
This year, an increase in volume and prices is expected for the industrial sector, besides a greater stability within the housing, commercial and hotel sectors, according to the consultant, which is also expecting a greater stability in the rates of return within the sectors under analysis, possibly even lowering within the housing and industry sectors.
On the other hand, for 54% of respondents, the bureaucracy will be one of the main obstacles for investment in Portugal in 2019, besides the tax policy, which worries 85% of respondents.
Pension funds will be the main buyers
In terms of divestment strategy, core assets and opportunistic deals will be the main targets for 31% of respondents, besides offices (38%), industrial assets (31%) and housing (23%).
Pension funds (62%) and funds from funds (46%) appear as the main real estate buyers and Europe (92%), North America (46%) and Asia (46%) stand out as the origin of the main investors. According to the agents in the sector, there won’t be any added difficulties to attract investment (46%) and the process to acquire real estate assets will take between three and six months (92%).