Austria, with an increase of 74%, was the market with the highest growth in investment, followed by Romania (+ 54%), the Netherlands (+ 46%) and Denmark (+ 32%), according to data from the international consultant Savills Aguirre Newman.
At a European level, cross-border investment represented 50% of activity in the past year, compared to 44% in the previous year, with Asian investors as the most active in Europe. However, without considering the United Kingdom, US investors are responsible for the main operations in Continental Europe, with a market share of 9%.
In terms of cross-border investment in Spain, in 2017 it represented 65% of the total, compared to 56% in 2016. The volume transacted by international investors, just over 6,000 million, represented 21% more than in 2016.
Marcus Lemli, head of European Investment at Savills, points out that "the trend of foreign capital to search for high-value assets will remain in 2018, so we expect to see more Asian investors coming from London to compete for assets in continental Europe. We also anticipate that "opportunistic" investors will go increasingly to secondary cities and locations in search of product, which will cause an increase in prices and yields".