Real estate investment in Barcelona fell by 49% in 2023, to 1,821 million euros, according to data presented by the consulting firm CBRE. The director of the firm's Barcelona office, Xavier Güell, highlighted that the fall is in line with what Europe as a whole has suffered (- 48%), due to the impact of the rise in interest rates. In his opinion, it will also be reversed this year: the firm expects the investment to exceed 2,000 million euros, with an increase of more than 10%.
Güell and the head of the firm's Studies, Marta Tarrío, explained that the investment was led by the hotel sector, which with 578 million euros closed the third best year since data is available, behind only 2021 and 2017, doubling the records for 2022. Two operations especially stood out: the purchase of the Sofia hotel in Barcelona, by the Blasson Property fund and the insurance company Axa, which paid about 180 million to the Canadian management company Brookfield; and the purchase of Mandarin Oriental by the Saudi Olayan Group from the Andorran businesswoman Maria Reig, valued at around 240 million.
The industrial and logistics sector, in which 555 million euros were invested, experienced the second best data in history, but the investment was 16% less than in 2022, which marked the record. In addition to Barcelona, the investment interest in Constantí (Tarragona) and La Bisbal de l'Empordà (Girona) stood out, so that Catalonia captured 44% of all investment in Spain.
The biggest drop in investment occurred in the office sector, where transactions reached 261 million euros, 76% less than in 2022. Güell explained that Barcelona has been harmed by the stoppage of institutional investors, “which They are the ones that move the market, while in Madrid the national investors who have now supported it have more weight.” In his opinion, therefore, when the interest rate scenario is clarified, Barcelona will recover faster.
Investment in the residential sector, for its part, fell by 68%, to 323 million euros, because last year it recorded one of the largest investments in Europe: the sale of a portfolio of 1,500 homes from BeCorp to the German fund Patricia . Without this operation the fall would have been similar to that of Spain as a whole, where it has been reduced by 30%, to 3,000 million euros, which has made the residential sector the second best of the year.
