Investment in Scottish commercial property fell by £550 million in 2019, with High Street woes taking their toll, writes Kristy Dorsey.
According to figures from real estate consultancy Knight Frank, £2.07 billion worth of deals were concluded last year. This was down from £2.62bn in 2018, and 10.4 per cent below the five-year average.
Transactions for shop units were nearly 80% below the five-year average at just £44 million, while shopping centres represented £38m of investment, 81% adrift of the five-year average of £197.6m.
At the other end of the spectrum, Edinburgh offices were the stand-out asset class in 2019 at £484m, up 70% on the previous year’s total of £284m. This was driven by a series of major transactions in the first half of the year, such as the Leonardo Innovation Hub at Crewe Toll and 4-8 St Andrew Square.
Alasdair Steele, head of commercial at Knight Frank, described the overall result as “resilient” amid the political and macro-economic challenges. But after a quiet fourth quarter before the General Election, 2020 is off to a strong start, with interest from international sources. Overseas investors represented 56% of investment in Scottish commercial property last year, while UK institutions’ share fell to 14%. Mr Steele said Korean funds were particularly active in 2019, as was Middle Eastern interest.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here