Encouraging signs from the Italian non-residential real estate investment market in the first quarter of 2019. Investments in commercial assets totaled 1.6 billion euro, a slight increase from 1.5 billion in the year-earlier period.
The result appears in the Prelios Group Market Research report on corporate investments in the first quarter of the year, showing that the office sector was the main driver of the Italian property market, with investments for 900 million euro in commercial assets (57.4% of the total), followed by the hospitality sector with 370 million euro (23.5%), and the logistics sector, which reported investments for 100 million euro (6.6%). The remaining transactions related to retail property for 50 million euro (3.1%), and other types of building, and mixed-use buildings, for an overall amount of 150 million euro.
In geographical terms, the North West confirmed its ranking as the macro area with the largest number of transactions, for a total of more than 917 million euro, followed by the Center with 211.4 million euro; the North East and the South & Islands had investments amounting to 48.3 million euro and 17.4 million euro respectively.
2019 first-quarter corporate real estate investments on the Milan market amounted to approximately 900 million euro, an increase of 86.1% from the first quarter of 2018. These investments arose largely in the office sector (amounting to 725 million euro), which accounted for 81.4% of total transacted volumes in Milan. Once again the Milanese corporate property market was dependent on foreign investors: 80.8% of capital flows came from outside Italy, specifically from US and Asian private equity funds, while European investors were from Germany, France and Switzerland.
Investments on the Rome non-residential property market in the first quarter of 2019 amounted to approximately 150 million euro. Compared with the first quarter of 2018, the Rome office sector saw a doubling in transacted volumes to a total of 140 million euro at the end of March 2019 (representing 92% of volumes in the city).
In terms of investment flows, at national level international institutional investors continued to lead the market with investments of 1.1 billion euro, accounting for 72.5% of the 1.6 billion euro of total transacted volumes in Italy, chiefly from the USA, Germany and Switzerland. National investment flows totaled 430 million euro, and referred largely to banks, property funds and private investors.