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Monday Feb 16, 2026
Monday Feb 16, 2026
Andreas Walter, partner and attorney at law at German boutique firm Yester & Morrow, says Europe’s real estate market is approaching a decisive turning point as refinancing pressure builds and regulatory reforms unlock new sources of long-term capital.
Speaking to Real Asset Media, Walter said prolonged market inertia since 2024 is nearing its end.
“In 2026, we are going to see a market movement. We've seen a standstill in the market for 2024–2025 because the refinancing. We had a record high refinancing rate which has not taken place. The can was kicked down the road. The banks didn't refinance. There was no pressure from the banking side on the lenders. We think this is going to shift, because as the first one within the line is going to fall, then it's going to have a huge impact on the overall market,” he said.
He explained that lenders have so far been able to defer difficult decisions by relying on existing credit assessments, provided borrowers maintained sufficient cash flow.
“There even is a legal reasoning for that, because the banks can prolong on their old assessments, even if it's a soft breach, as long as the capital flow is there,” he said.
He warned that this flexibility is now fading.
“Now, once that changes, they need to go into a new assessment. We think 2026 is going to be the year when, for the first time, there's going to be pressure from the banking side on the real estate sector to refinance,” he said.
Walter also highlighted major changes in Germany’s regulatory treatment of fund structures, which he believes will reshape institutional investment.
“Well, from the positive side, on the other hand, what we are currently seeing is a paradigm shift in the way the legislature actually treats the regulation on the fund sector,” he said.
He said the reforms will enable pension funds to invest more directly in real estate and infrastructure through joint ventures.
“Now, what does that enable? It gives us the chance to actually pool pension money, not only international but also German pension money, with a very direct investment ability from a fund into a JV, into the real estate and the infrastructure sector,” he said.
A central element is the removal of long-standing tax risks that previously discouraged integrated investment structures.
“Because they are taking away this huge risk of trade tax which was always there, banning people going into sensible economic structures, they had to legally separate them and therefore destroy value within the chain,” he said.
He added that legislative reform will support more efficient deployment of capital.
“Now, shifting this from the legislative side is going to give us the ability to have a direct investment into infrastructure and commercial activities, which is going to have a huge impact from our perspective,” he said.
Walter sees infrastructure-led strategies as central to building more resilient portfolios.
“And what is the core type, or the core essence, of infrastructure? It is way less volatile than real estate. So, you've got a steady income stream from the infrastructure,” he said.
He argued that combining infrastructure and property investment could help address wider social challenges.
“We can combine it with real estate and therefore have a real impact on big questions of the society. Like, how do we live? How do we combine living of the younger and the older generation? And how do we get back to vibrant inner cities?” he said.
Environmental performance, he added, will be central to future development models.
“Well, if we make them climate neutral, due to the fact that we have got renewable energies, and we can have a direct investment, we combine it with the real estate on which we are building it. It's going to be a win-win for everybody,” he said.
Taken together, Walter believes 2026 will mark a transition away from financial forbearance and regulatory constraint towards tighter credit discipline and more flexible capital structures.
While refinancing pressure is likely to expose vulnerabilities across parts of the market, he expects regulatory reform and pension-backed investment models to support a more stable and socially responsive phase of European real estate development in the years ahead.
www.realassetinsight.com
Monday Feb 16, 2026
Monday Feb 16, 2026
German real estate debt strategies are entering a new market cycle with improving fundamentals, despite continued fundraising challenges and selective competition for lower-risk assets, according to Patrick Züchner, chief investment officer at Aukera Real Estate.
Speaking to Real Asset Media, Züchner said Aukera benefits from a long operating history across cycles, even though the firm itself was established in 2020. “The team actually started very early in the cycle back in the day 2010,” he said. “We had the idea to create a German-speaking manager, and I think there was a need.”
He added that the firm’s local positioning extends beyond language. “The German angle, not only language-wise but also mentality and documentation-wise, helped us a lot to get traction,” Züchner said. During the previous cycle, the team “was able to raise and invest more than 4 billion,” providing a strong foundation at the start of the next phase of the market.
Aukera focuses on niche real estate debt transactions typically ranging between €10 million and €15 million. Züchner described this segment as “a nice sweet spot,” combining “an institutional type of property [and] an institutional type of sponsor,” while still benefiting from “a lack of competition in the market.”
The strategy is deployed across sectors, although Züchner said offices remain the most challenging. “It’s even the most critical, I think, for the office market,” he said, citing weak macro and global trends.
Despite this, he highlighted the role of experienced local sponsors. “They are nevertheless our local heroes, which concentrate on making real estate actively look nicer, feel nicer and get more attraction from tenants, and therefore also actively increase value.”
As an example, Züchner pointed to a recently closed office financing in the Netherlands involving a global seller exiting the sector and a local sponsor stepping in. “On top of the purchase price there is a 15% capex tranche within the loan to increase the ESG side of the property,” he said.
The building is “already 80% occupied,” and benefits from “an improving location,” which he described as “a combination of a niche product with a very bright future.”
Looking ahead, Züchner expects financing conditions to remain demanding. “2026 will still be a competitive market on the very simple product side,” he said, adding that “if you tick only nine out of ten boxes, it will be very difficult for borrowers to get financing.”
Based on his experience over the past decade, Züchner said capital deployment is rarely the main constraint in real estate debt markets. “Deal flow and deployment was never the bottleneck, but fundraising,” he said, noting that many German investors “struggle a bit these days to return to private debt, especially the real estate debt market.”
Despite this, he struck an optimistic tone. “The environment is very positive,” Züchner said, adding that Aukera has completed “a first closing of our pooled fund recently for 2026.”
He concluded: “I hope and I feel that this attraction will come back, that investors will invest heavily. The burden from the past is the success of tomorrow.”
www.realassetmedia.com
Monday Feb 02, 2026
Monday Feb 02, 2026
Germany’s acute housing shortage, particularly in major cities such as Berlin, is driving growing demand for smaller, more affordable rental homes and reshaping development strategies across the market, according to Matthias Euler, managing director, Germany and Austria, at Greystar.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, Euler said: “I think the German residential market is one of the hottest at the moment in the world. In Germany, we have a huge lack of residential apartments. People are not finding apartments, especially in the metropolitan regions of the top seven, like Berlin.” He added: “Finding an apartment in Berlin is almost impossible.”
Explaining Greystar’s response, Euler said: “So, what we do — we have two routes. On the one hand, we construct small micro-living apartments with a big part of amenities that people feel like at home. [They] have a first entrance into a residential market, like in Berlin, before they start to search for a long-term apartment.” He added: “So we are sort of a buffer.”
Alongside this, the group is developing more basic housing for long-term residents. “On the other hand, we try to invest into projects which do not have any amenities — no furniture — to allow local people to find an apartment in the long term for lower rents,” he said. “Because we need to ask for rents of €20 to €25 per sq m to cover the construction costs.”
Euler said that while these rent levels remain high, they are stabilising. “They are still high, but they’re stabilised,” he said. “We need a bigger lot size for a project to have a sort of a scaling effect that helps us to cover the costs and to use modular construction and prefab construction. And this is how we try to solve the situation.”
He also pointed to financing constraints across Europe. “The main driver in Europe is the capital, the missing capital,” Euler said. “So, we see lots of developers who have very good ideas, very nice plots, but not the capital to get the construction done.” He added that this is where Greystar steps in “by capital injections with the global presence of Greystar”.
Highlighting the group’s global platform, he said: “We are managing one million apartments worldwide, so we know how to collect equity and to place investors and help them to get invested into Germany. We know how to produce the reporting they are expecting as an institutional investor. So, we are sort of a filter from institutional capital to local presence and local projects.”
Greystar’s operational background also shapes its development model. “Greystar is originally a property manager for residential apartments. We know exactly what they need,” Euler said. “So, we always have at least two full-time employees in the asset: the technical asset manager and a community manager.”
He added that many schemes require redesign. “If we take a look at a plot, we first check the layouts, because normally they are too big, the apartments. They were planned for build to sell and not for build to rent,” he said. “So, we optimise them, we reduce the square metres, we make more units in one asset than originally planned.”
This approach extends to student housing and short-term accommodation. “We also think about PBSA for students, really made for students,” Euler said. “The student has another need. They don’t need 30, 40 sq m in their apartment.”
As a result, “for students, we think about 20 sq m for an apartment”, while larger units of 30 to 40 sq m are aimed at business travellers and project-based workers.
Euler said this combination of targeted design, capital support, and operational expertise is central to addressing Germany’s housing shortage as development costs and funding constraints continue to weigh on new supply.
www.realassetmedia.com
Wednesday Jan 14, 2026
Wednesday Jan 14, 2026
Alexander Fröse, managing partner and founder of Periskop Living, outlines the group’s plans to expand its senior living investment strategy beyond Germany and into new European markets.
Speaking to Real Asset Media, Fröse said: “Periskop Living is headquartered in Berlin. It’s an investment management company just focused on health care, typically on senior living, which means care homes and assisted living facilities.”
He said the firm is now looking to deploy capital more broadly across Europe. “We already wanted to invest outside of Germany, and we are looking forward to having more of a European outreach, which means potentially in the Netherlands and other countries where we will allocate our future equity as well.”
Fröse highlighted the scale of Periskop’s existing platform and its vertically integrated structure, saying the group has built a fully integrated holding company and invested roughly €200 million in the senior living sector over recent years.
The strategy remains focused on value creation through hands-on management of existing assets. “To really maximise value for the society and our investors and ourselves, we have primarily a focus on existing assets, which we can reposition in having a real proactive asset management approach,” Fröse said.
He added that development opportunities may also be considered where scale and returns justify the approach. “We are open to looking into development sectors as well, and at asset classes, if the business case makes sense, and in the best case, is scalable.”
For further information on Periskop Living: www.periskop.ag
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Monday Jan 05, 2026
Monday Jan 05, 2026
Commercial real estate lending conditions in the US are beginning to improve, with early interest rate cuts and a gradual recovery in office demand expected to support increased acquisition and refinancing activity through 2026, according to Helga Blum, managing director and head of US real estate finance at BayernLB.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO REAL in October 2025, Blum said the US lending market had endured a prolonged period of disruption following the pandemic but was now showing early signs of renewed momentum.
“The commercial real estate lending market has been challenged in the United States as a result of the global pandemic, as we all know too well,” she said. “We’re finally starting to come out of that and are hopeful that the rate cuts that the Federal Reserve has started will actually spur additional activity in the US commercial real estate market, both in terms of acquisitions [and] refinancings.”
Blum said the improving monetary environment was underpinning a more constructive outlook for the year ahead.
“So overall, I’m quite hopeful for 2026 to be a good year,” she said.
Office market performance, however, remains highly dependent on location, with sharp differences emerging between US coastal markets.
“The office market is really very dependent on the geographic market that we’re talking about,” Blum said.
She noted that several West Coast cities continue to face structural headwinds, with weaker leasing demand and higher vacancy rates persisting in major urban cores.
“I think the West Coast markets, for the most part, remain somewhat challenged,” she said, pointing to Seattle, downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco.
By contrast, Blum said conditions on the East Coast are improving, led by a recovery in New York City and strong demand for high-quality office assets.
“On the East Coast, things are starting to look up, particularly in New York City,” she said. “We see some of the trophy quality office properties doing very well.”
She highlighted strong occupancy levels in prime Midtown locations as a sign of renewed confidence in the office sector.
“There’s hardly any vacancy in the Park Avenue corridor,” Blum said. “New York City is back, and most firms are mandating their employees to be back in the office four or five days a week, so that has definitely helped the office market.”
www.realassetmedia.com
Tuesday Dec 30, 2025
Tuesday Dec 30, 2025
Germany’s senior living market is entering a period of rapid expansion, driven by accelerating demographic change, improving affordability, and a shift away from traditional nursing home models, according to Kip Sloane, managing director at SCHÖNES LEBEN Group.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, Sloane said the fundamentals supporting premium senior housing in Germany are now firmly in place, creating what he described as a rare window of opportunity for both operators and investors.
“The market is a huge opportunity,” Sloane said. “We've got the right product, which is premium senior housing. Then we've got a huge demand accelerating [through] demographic change over the baby boomers.”
He added that affordability is a critical part of the equation, distinguishing Germany from other European senior living markets. “People can actually pay for what they seek,” he said. “That is, for me, a huge momentum in the market, because the market structure has been kind of stiff throughout the last decade. And it's ripe for change and more development.”
SCHÖNES LEBEN’s model focuses on premium living delivered as a central service, combining conventional rental housing with a wide range of on-site amenities. Apartments are unfurnished, typically around 70 sq m, and are designed to function as full private homes rather than care units.
Residents can access a broad service offering, including housekeeping, facility management, and a 24-hour concierge. “We offer all the services you can think of,” Sloane said. “We’ve got a restaurant, a bar, a cafe, and we have utility spaces like a fitness area. We've got a sauna, maybe a swimming pool.”
Care provision forms another core pillar of the concept, but Sloane stressed that SCHÖNES LEBEN does not operate nursing homes. Instead, care is delivered through mobile care and daycare services integrated into the residential environment.
“I do have to explain that it's not a nursing home and that there are alternatives to nursing homes, which is, from a perspective of a customer, extremely important,” he said. “They want something different than a classical nursing home in 90% of the cases.”
Once the concept is explained, it resonates quickly with residents and families, particularly when framed in a wider European context. “If one thinks of how do I want my Mum, my Dad, or myself to age, it snaps,” Sloane said. “I can just say, look at [integrated retirement communities] in the UK, just take a look over there, and then it's explainable.”
From a regulatory perspective, Sloane said premium senior living offers significantly greater operational flexibility than traditional stationary care. “If you go into premium senior living, you basically don't have this high regulation,” he said. While rent legislation applies, he noted that mobile care is subject to far lighter regulation than nursing homes.
“That makes it more flexible for me,” he said. “And I do have more niches for entrepreneurial freedom, which is always important on the operating side.”
Looking ahead, SCHÖNES LEBEN has a substantial development pipeline already in place. “We have six more projects which have already been contractually signed, and which we will open throughout the next three years,” Sloane said. “And we're aiming at 10 to maybe, if all goes right, 15 new sites within the next five years.”
www.realassetmedia.com
Friday Dec 19, 2025
Friday Dec 19, 2025
Indoor air quality is emerging as a commercial and regulatory priority for real estate owners, with growing evidence that combining air quality monitoring with energy management can improve tenant retention, asset performance, and financial outcomes, according to Jan-Kristian Westerlund, chief commercial officer at freesi.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, Westerlund said indoor air quality has historically been under-appreciated in property investment, but is now gaining prominence following the Covid-19 pandemic and Europe’s energy crisis.
“It’s a topic that is relatively new, so it needs more awareness,” he said. “However, after Covid and the energy crisis, it has increased in need through regulation.”
Westerlund pointed to the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which will require indoor air quality monitoring and control in non-residential buildings across the EU. He said this regulatory shift has significantly accelerated adoption among property owners and managers.
“The new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is now requiring implementation of indoor air quality monitoring and control in all non-residential assets,” he said. “This has increased the awareness tremendously.”
Freesi works with a broad range of real estate stakeholders, from commercial portfolio owners to cities and municipalities, with its technology now used by more than 100 cities. Westerlund said the company’s focus extends beyond data collection to ensuring that insights are understood and acted on across organisations.
“It’s about the people adopting, learning how to use the technology, and using it to make improvements for air quality in buildings,” he said.
This requires engagement across the entire ownership and management chain, from facilities teams and tenants to asset managers and portfolio owners responsible for financial performance.
“We work a lot with the stakeholders, from properties to facilities managers, to the actual tenants, to the asset managers who are commercially responsible for the buildings, and to portfolio owners who make them as financial products,” he said.
While indoor air quality monitoring is increasingly driven by regulation, Westerlund said clients remain focused on commercial outcomes. Many landlords are integrating indoor climate management alongside heating, ventilation, and cooling optimisation to ensure that energy savings do not come at the expense of occupant health.
“Whenever they’re doing energy management on heating, ventilation, and cooling, they will always implement indoor climate management to bring the safeguard that they never do it [while] compromising the health, well-being, and comfort of the people inside the buildings,” he said.
Improved air quality also supports tenant engagement and retention, which Westerlund described as a critical driver of asset-level financial performance.
“Through better tenant engagement and satisfaction, the landlords are able to retain their tenants for a longer time,” he said. “This, of course, is critical for the finances of the assets.”
On the investment side, Westerlund said decision-making is increasingly data-driven, with financial metrics central to adoption.
“Our decision makers are financial decision makers, so they need to see the numbers,” he said. “They need to see the net operating income, how it changes from this. They need to see how long is the payback time for implementing this.”
At the same time, freesi also works closely with sustainability teams, particularly where indoor air quality data supports reporting on social and health-related ESG metrics.
“This is a perfect way of making it tangible in an area that is otherwise a little bit difficult for real estate managers,” Westerlund said.
www.realassetmedia.com
Thursday Dec 18, 2025
Thursday Dec 18, 2025
People and capital must come together if European cities are to attract long-term investment and remain competitive, according to Annelou de Groot, chief executive officer for the Netherlands at Cushman & Wakefield.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, de Groot said successful city investment strategies depend on aligning capital deployment with social outcomes. “The key takeaways for me is that it’s about two things. It’s about people and capital. And we need to combine both of them,” she said.
She pointed to Cushman & Wakefield’s research into inclusive cities, arguing that investment decisions must go beyond financial metrics alone. “It’s not only around capital, it’s also around being inclusive,” de Groot said. She defined inclusivity as resting on four core pillars: sustainability, diversity, affordability and accessibility.
While challenges vary widely across Europe, de Groot highlighted housing affordability as a shared pressure point. “What we see in general in Europe is that the affordability piece, mainly for housing, is a big challenge,” she said, adding that cities show far greater divergence when it comes to sustainability, accessibility and diversity.
Looking ahead, de Groot said defence spending is set to become a major structural driver of urban development and real estate demand across Europe. “We are just at the start of a huge, huge impact of defence industry in the real estate markets, but also cities in Europe,” she said.
She noted that European countries have committed to allocating around 3.5% of GDP to defence, a shift that will reshape demand patterns. “We will now be more focused on people. We will now be more focused on production, on logistics and on innovation campuses,” she said.
Those priorities, she added, will translate directly into property markets. “These expenditures will also come down to real estate expenditures,” de Groot said.
As European cities adapt to these structural changes, she argued that closer cooperation between the public and private sectors will be essential. “The big thing is to collaborate even more, public parties and private parties, not only to do the defence expenditures, but also to become a better city that combines growth together with sustainability and inclusivity,” she said.
www.realassetimpact.com
Thursday Dec 18, 2025
Thursday Dec 18, 2025
Falling interest rates should help revive activity across the US commercial real estate market, supporting higher transaction and lending volumes, according to Vikram Killampali, senior director and manager of US commercial real estate finance syndications at Helaba.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, Killampali was taking part in what he said was the first panel hosted in Germany by a US real estate lending organisation, aimed at giving European investors greater visibility on conditions and opportunities in the US commercial real estate market.
He said the outlook for interest rates was turning more supportive for deal activity. “Right now, because there's a story about declining interest rates, that should be positive for the commercial real estate market, and that should spur activity, acquisition volume and more loan volume for banks like Helaba,” he said.
He said the office sector continues to represent the main area of stress across US commercial real estate lending. “The challenge that I can see is consistent with what we've been experiencing for the past 18 months, which is in the office subsector, where there has been the most distress,” Killampali said.
He added that the impact of the pandemic continues to weigh on office markets in many US cities. “After COVID, the office subsector and a lot of markets got hit very, very badly, and that's what caused a lot of loan losses for banks like Helaba and others with an office portfolio,” he said.
Despite these pressures, Killampali said he remains positive on the medium-term outlook. “With that said, [I'm] excited about the prospects of commercial real estate industry in the US in the next couple of years.”
www.realassetmedia.com
Wednesday Dec 17, 2025
Wednesday Dec 17, 2025
Warsaw’s long-term transformation of its city centre is strengthening the quality of life, attracting talent, and boosting private-sector investment, according to Maciej Fijałkowski, secretary of the City of Warsaw.
Speaking to Real Asset Media at EXPO Real 2025, Fijałkowski said the Polish capital’s strategy focuses on combining heritage, contemporary development, and future growth, while positioning Warsaw as an open and inclusive city.
“Our transformation track is one of combining history, contemporary and future in the city, along with a specific approach of being an open city for everyone who would like to come to the city of Warsaw,” he said. “Our goal is to make the city as good for living as possible — a city of high-quality services, but also a green city.”
Fijałkowski said Warsaw is now one of Europe’s greenest capitals, supported by strong public transport connectivity and a high standard of urban services. A central pillar of this strategy is the redevelopment of the city centre, branded by the municipality as the “new city centre”.
“Our priority in the last years and in the following years is the transformation of the city centre,” he said. “We transform public spaces and create better quality public space in markets, squares and parks to make the city as liveable as possible.”
He added that high-quality public spaces, combined with safety and cleanliness, are key to Warsaw’s appeal for both residents and newcomers. “Warsaw is a very safe city — which is not obvious in European cities — it’s a clean city, and that makes it good for people to live in,” he said.
According to Fijałkowski, improving liveability also supports economic development by expanding the city’s talent base. “By building high-quality public spaces in the city centre, we encourage people who already live in the city and those who would like to come but are looking for a place to move,” he said. “We try to show them it’s a good place for you.”
He said this talent attraction is directly linked to investment potential. “If we enhance this pool of talent, if we encourage people to live and work in Warsaw, it gives them the opportunity to develop their skills and their dreams,” he said. “It also helps potential investors to make new projects.”
Fijałkowski added that successful urban development depends on a balanced ecosystem. “All this requires all elements to work together — good investment projects from the private sector, high-quality services from the public sector, and demand from people,” he said.
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