1. Italy: Strong tourism boosts hotel investment
A seller’s market buoyed by high tourism demand is helping to drive a renaissance in Italian hotel investment, according to analysts at a recent conference in Rome.
Guido Castellini, senior adviser at brokerage Coldwell Banker Commercial, said Italy’s highest-profile trophy assets are not changing hands, but steady tourism is fueling sales of other types of Italian hotels and resorts. “New destinations are developing, places where buyers can create value,” he said during a panel discussion at the Italian Hotel Investment Conference. Some secondary markets are garnering attention, and analysts pointed to average daily room rates at Italian resorts that are now higher than those in many other regions.
2. UK: Moody’s leases big London office space
Financial ratings firm Moody’s leased 110,862 square feet of offices in central London, as the global data provider relocates its European headquarters.
CBRE Investment Management completed the lease for space at a refurbished building at 10 Gresham St., where Moody’s has an option to lease an additional 32,403 square feet. Moody’s said earlier this year that it would be moving its regional operations from London’s Canary Wharf complex, where it has been located since 2009, subject to final terms on its new lease.
3. France: Oxford Properties closes on large Paris refinancing
Oxford Properties signed a €182.5 million green loan with Aareal Bank to refinance a Paris office building, after an extensive €20 million renovation of the property in the city’s 9th arrondissement.
Officials of Toronto-based Oxford, the real estate arm of the Ontario municipal employees’ pension fund, said the financial and renovation moves were aimed at upgrading the property’s environmental building certification to meet tenant expectations. Oxford Properties acquired the building in 2014 and said the repositioning has enabled the property to increase its rental income by about 30% and bring in tenants such as Swiss firm EOS Imaging.
4. Germany: Irish investment group buys Munich hotel
Dublin-based Dean Hotel Group, a joint venture between Lifestyle Hospitality Capital Group and Elliott Investment Management, purchased the Roomers Munich hotel as part of larger plans to expand in Europe.
The 280-room hotel opened in 2017 and was sold for an undisclosed price in an off-market deal by W.P. Carey, a U.S.-based real estate investment trust. The new owner plans to renovate and operate the Munich property as it looks to grow its existing portfolio of nine hotels in Ireland.
5. Canada: Central bank delivers major interest rate cut
Canada’s central bank delivered its fourth rate cut of 2024, a move welcomed by the real estate industry, as it doubled the size of the reduction in the overnight lending rate it has made in each of three prior moves this year. Canada joins other nations reducing borrowing costs amid slowing inflation, including the United States and United Kingdom.
The Bank of Canada said it was lowering its trend-setting policy rate by 50 basis points to 3.75%, following a cut of 25 basis points each in June, July and September that came after the overnight lending rate had risen to 5% in July 2023. “We took a bigger step today because inflation is now back to the 2% target and we want to keep it close to the target,” bank governor Tiff Macklem said in a statement Oct. 23.
6. US: Private firms look to invest billions in affordable apartments
Turner Impact Capital seeks to raise $750 million in equity from investors as it plans to pour a total of $2.3 billion into the preservation and development of affordable apartments, joining a wave of private firms looking to keep rents cheap while making what they hope are sound investments.
More affordable housing projects, mostly apartments, are expected to lose government subsidies as the number of expiring contracts that often run for 30 years more than doubles in 2025 on developments completed after the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit launched in 1987. Investors and municipalities have scrambled to find solutions for renters who earn too much to qualify for traditional subsidized housing but not enough to afford market-rate units as costs rise.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.