Interest rates

The European property industry remains cautious but positive on the coming year, bolstered by an improving macroeconomic outlook for the eurozone and real estate’s continued attractiveness as an asset class, according to the Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2018 survey.

Investors remain keen on real estate debt, as recent fund closes, including more than £1 billion for PGIM Real Estate, demonstrate.

Lenders and borrowers in the US real estate debt market should embrace historically low interest rates, as they will continue to hover near zero for the foreseeable future. That was the sentiment several real estate finance managers and directors voiced at the IMN Real Estate CFO Forum this week.

European CRE finance industry gets mixed signals on interest rates in the face of the UK’s EU referendum

Negative interest rates implemented by central banks are driving up the costs of real estate lending, the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) Europe has warned.

As 2015 ended there was a lot of discussion about the direction for property in 2016 particularly in the UK where the question was whether the market has peaked.

The much anticipated increase by 0.25 percentage points to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent will have no impact on commercial real estate, according to industry experts.

The Bank of England should not raise interest rates just yet and should maintain its quantitative easing (QE) programme to encourage bank lending, an audience at Real Estate Capital’s Europe Forum 2015 heard this morning. In his keynote address to more than 130 real estate finance professionals, Dr Gerard Lyons, chief economic advisor to London City Hall, said the risks to the UK economy of raising interest rates outweighed maintaining the status quo.

The Federal Reserve’s latest Monetary Policy Report points to rapidly rising commercial property valuations amid stronger demand for loans and eased lending standards.